


The Dying of the Light

by starsonfire



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 2020 Bellarke fic awards semi-finalist, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Touchy-feely best friends, cw: war-related violence, minor character deaths that mirror canonverse deaths, nurse/soldier, wwi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:14:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 132,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25696375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsonfire/pseuds/starsonfire
Summary: "Was this the path that war led people down? Kisses with bloodied mouths?"///Clarke Griffin is a nurse assigned to Captain Bellamy Blake's unit on the front lines of The Great War. Despite coming from very different backgrounds, the two of them can't help but find themselves drawn to one another. As the world throws everything at them - sinking ships, gunfire, fields of blood, heartbreak - they find it harder and harder to let go of each other. Can a bond forged in the fires of extraordinary circumstances make it to the other side of the war?
Relationships: Bellamy Blake & Clarke Griffin, Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 210
Kudos: 348





	1. Of Ships and Sorrows

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! The idea of Bellamy as a soldier in the Great War and Clarke as a nurse in the trenches has been burning in my brain since March, and I've been writing this like crazy. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I hope you'll give it a chance! Just to warn you all, there will be some minor character deaths, because, obviously, this story takes place during a war, but they do mirror deaths that have already occurred on the show, so hopefully no surprises here. 
> 
> I want to post a caveat that, while I did research as much as I could, this is in no way meant to be a fully historically-accurate story. There's some things that I had to twist to fit the story, and others that I didn't have time to research or couldn't find any info on, so please take the historical elements with a grain of salt. Happy reading!
> 
> October 2020 update: this fic was a semi-finalist for the 2020 Bellarke fic writer awards! Thanks to all of you who voted <3

* * *

_in which our heroes meet, an ocean is crossed, and great peril arises._

* * *

_**May, 1915** _

“Ladies, the day has finally come. If you are standing in this room right now, it means you have passed your nursing training. It means that now is the time that you take up your place in the war.”

Nervous, hushed whispers began to weave through the air, but were quickly silenced by a stern look from the head nurse, who stood in front, pacing up and down the row.

“Now, not all of you will be sent to the front. We try to place each lady best according to her strengths. At least, that’s what we’re doing now. One can’t say how this will go as the war stretches on,” she added, her tone darkening. 

“Remember, ladies: no matter the circumstance, you must remember the rules. Never travel without your uniform, and two replacements. Never wear your uniform if you are traveling more than a short walking distance in it. Be sure that your appearance is always clean, tidy, and modest. Do no harm, and listen to your patients. Always obey the orders of your superiors. And last, but most certainly not least – there will be _no_ improper liaisons with officers of any rank. Understood?” The head nurse clasped her hands together aggressively in front of her waist, leaning toward the row of younger ladies imperiously.

“Yes, headmistress,” the ladies chorused.

“Now, I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for your assignments. While most of you are being stationed at the new war hospital here in Halifax, some of you will be sent to England to help with convalescing soldiers there as well. I’ve put your assignments on a list in the entryway.”

The room thrummed with anticipation.

“Permission to go and find your assignments granted,” the head nurse finally said, and there was a rushed, vaguely organized scuffle to the door on the left as the newly-uniformed nurses scrambled to see where they’d be going.

“Miss Griffin,” the head nurse boomed suddenly.

Clarke Griffin ground to a halt, her sensible black shoes squeaking against the polished wooden floor.

 _Oh no._ What had she done this time? She clenched her fists together, feeling them grow clammy.

“Headmistress, if this is about me arguing with Florence last week during the sutures class, I have apologized-”

“I don’t care what you’ve said to Florence,” the head nurse muttered, rolling her eyes. Her freckled, weathered skin was beginning to wrinkle around her eyes and mouth, and the wrinkles deepened as she frowned. “The girl could stand to listen when others speak a little more though, I daresay. Not much between the ears there, I’m afraid.”

Clarke tilted her head in confusion, grimacing as her starched collar cut into her neck. She hated the thing. They were only worn for appearances’ sake and served absolutely no purpose. But the nurses had to give off the air of propriety, and it seemed that the starched round collars had been decided upon as the answer to that. 

“Then I don’t understand, headmistress. Why did you call me over? I’m still getting an assignment, am I not?”

“That’s exactly what I wanted to speak to you about,” the head nurse said brusquely. “Now, I implore you not to let your pride get to you when I say this, but I must confess: you, Miss Griffin, have consistently shown more promise in medicine than any other lady I’ve seen passing through this training program.”

Color rose to Clarke’s cheeks. She wasn’t so used to compliments. _Especially_ not here, where the training staff made you feel like nothing you did was ever good enough.

“Thank you very much, madam,” Clarke said quietly, still unsure of where this conversation was going.

“Think nothing of it,” the nurse said gruffly, waving away her thanks. “I’m not sure you’ll be so grateful once you hear what I have to say. The reason I’m telling you this is that because of your skills, your assignment is different than any of the other girls. It isn’t posted on that list out there, because it’s of a much more demanding nature, as well as one that requires a bit more. . .discretion, if you will.”

 _Discretion?_ What assignment could Clarke possibly get that required–?

“I’m sorry, but I don’t quite follow,” Clarke replied, fighting the urge to chew her bottom lip – a habit her mother had always abhorred in her. 

“To make a rather long and complicated story short, Miss Griffin, you’re being sent to the front.”

Clarke’s stomach plummeted to her stockings. “The _front?_ You mean, to a field hospital?”

“No, Miss Griffin. To the front lines. In France.”

A flush rose upward from Clarke’s chest, creeping up her neck. She’d been expecting to heal men returning from the war, not to go to war herself. 

She was completely untested in the field. Could she even do this?

“Ma’am, I’m not sure I can–”

“Oh, fiddle-faddle, Miss Griffin. We’ve all been more than impressed with your work, with your skills here. Your reasoning, your ability to keep a cool head and a steady hand no matter how gruesome the injury – you’re perfectly qualified for the assignment. I trust no other lady in your program to be able to do it as well as you will.” The head nurse raised an eyebrow at Clarke, almost as if she was challenging her.

Clarke shook her head. “Forgive me, but I still don’t understand. Why is a nurse needed at the front lines? And why is discretion a matter you felt led to mention? What exactly is this assignment, if I might ask?”

“To be frank, Miss Griffin, the army is going through medics faster than training can churn them out,” the head nurse answered, her voice lower than before. “The army has put in a request to have the best-trained nurses take a supplemental role of a medic at the front, just to try and have someone trained in medicine in as many units as possible. And you are the clear choice from this program, in my opinion.” The nurse nodded once, sternly.

 _Going through medics faster than training can keep up?_ Clarke knew what that meant. It meant the medics weren’t making it. That there weren’t enough of them on the ground surviving. 

Her pulse threaded in faint panic.

“As for the matter of discretion,” The head nurse continued, “you can of course imagine how this would create a delicate situation, one society would not condone if it were not wartime. You will be assigned under an army captain – a man – unchaperoned. As you are not a married woman, that of course could bring about some scandal. I must ask, are you willing to put yourself in that situation for the cause, Miss Griffin?”

Clarke tried not to grit her teeth. She already hated the social requirement of always having to be chaperoned as a single young lady. Men her age were free to gallivant unhindered and unmonitored throughout society, so why should not she have the very same freedom? They were all god’s children, equal under his eyes, after all. And this was about saving lives in a war. She wasn’t about to let arbitrary rules of civility hinder her from doing that, even if she was a little afraid.

“I am very much willing, headmistress,” Clarke said readily, trying to put on a stoic, convincing face. 

“I knew you would be,” the head nurse said, her voice almost warm, but not quite. “I would go to France myself, if I were still in my younger years,” she said wistfully. “But those are gone now. The head of the army unit you’re being assigned to is a Captain Blake, of the Third Battalion, Toronto Regiment. You will be escorted by train to New York City, and rendezvous with him at the end of your journey – about two days, if I remember correctly. You’ll be sailing to England first, for your briefing, and then from there the two of you will be sent to the front in France. You will find your train ticket and your boarding papers for the ship in your quarters. The _RMS Lusitania,_ I think. Lovely ocean liner. Very upscale. The tickets weren’t booked in time for you to sail on a military ship. All the better for you, I’d imagine. Civilians are surely much more pleasant traveling companions. Do you have any questions?”

Clarke gazed up at the head nurse, trying to absorb the reality of her immediate future. She’d expected to be stationed here, in Halifax, alongside her mother perhaps, or if she’d gotten lucky, she’d get to see England working in a hospital there.

Well, she was going to get to see England. Just only for a moment, on her way to the front lines of the war. 

She was afraid.

She also desperately wanted to do it. To prove herself, to help those men at war instead of waiting in silence, dreading their returns home in wooden boxes, or not returning at all. 

Clarke shook her head. “No questions, madam. Wait – one question. Only a request that I might see my mother before I depart.”

“Your train departs in four hours. Between now and then, you may do whatever you like, so long as you have packed your things in time to be driven to the station.” 

Clarke sighed in relief. “Thank you, headmistress. And thank you,” Clarke added, “for believing in me.”

“Don’t prove that I’ve been mistaken in doing so, Miss Griffin,” the head nurse replied, her tone a warning.

The two women nodded solemnly to each other, and the head nurse departed, her white kerchief cap swaying over her hair as she went.

Clarke found herself standing alone in the fading afternoon sunlight, a golden gleam sweeping across the floor boards. 

Four hours. She had four hours to pack, and to find her mother and tell her what was happening.

Clarke hastened for the door, heading toward the stairs up to her quarters.

… 

“Clarke, you cannot go.” Abigail Griffin’s hat bobbed precariously as she shook her head in protest at her daughter. “I will not allow it.” 

Clarke Griffin’s mother ripped her gloves off unceremoniously and tossed them onto the small round table where they were seated, waiting for tea and sandwiches. 

“Mother, I didn’t just train to be a nurse for weeks only to pack up my things and slink home like a coward. I’m going.” Clarke folded her arms, trying not to shiver at the brisk spring air that whipped through the doorway as a new set of customers trampled in. 

“Clarke, not only is it infinitely more dangerous at the front, but if you won’t think of your safety, think of your reputation! What man will marry a young woman who’s been traipsing about Europe alone, surrounded by other men? You’ll be ruined!”

“That was hardly my first worry, mother, but what will it matter? If no one will help the cause, there will be no men left to return home and offer me their hand, now will there?” Clarke grit her teeth. She thought nothing of marriage now. She had no desire to be tied down, to be restricted to keeping house and bearing children. No, certainly not yet, before she’d even done or seen anything in the world. Perhaps when she came home, she’d join up with those suffragettes who’d been causing such a stir as of late. Why should the women not vote alongside the men, if they had to live in a society full of the same consequences?

Her mother frowned, the lines around her mouth and eyes deepening. Ultimately, she knew she couldn’t stop her daughter. The train ticket was bought and the assignment agreed to.

“Darling, I’m just afraid – I’m just afraid you won’t come back, either.” She wrung her hands, failing to smile in thanks as a serving girl placed a teapot and two cups down in front of them.

Clarke sighed. “Mother, I will come back. I’m only a nurse. They won’t be putting a rifle in my hands and shoving me toward the Germans. I’ll just be tending to the sick and the wounded. I’ll be fine. Besides, they’re sending us to England first for a briefing. Who knows? Maybe the tide will have turned for the better by the time we actually reach France.” 

Her mother fell silent for a moment. Her hands trembled as she poured both of them steaming cups of tea. “Do you know the officer you’ve been assigned to? Where he’s from, or who his family is?”

Clarke tried not to roll her eyes. It was war. It hardly mattered who a man’s family was once he was on the battlefield. “I only know his name. Captain Blake, from Toronto. We’ll meet in New York to board the ship.”

Her mother nodded. “Well, it’s no small miracle you’ve at least been sent to a civilian ship. I feel much better knowing that there will be other ladies and children on board, and not just a raucous horde of military men. Perhaps you can make some friends, or find a married lady willing to be your chaperone for a while.” 

Clarke simply nodded in agreement instead of trying to argue. Some battles with her mother just weren’t worth the fight anymore; they’d only ever reach a stalemate. Besides, Clarke knew that in a roundabout way, her mother’s obsession with decorum and etiquette was just another way of expressing care for her. Clarke was her only child, and she clearly wanted to shield her from the caprices that young women in the world so often faced. Even if she did still cling to them far too much during wartime, when the rules of civility didn’t feel so important anymore. 

“I certainly hope that Captain Blake is a grizzled old married man,” her mother continued, reaching for a triangle-cut slice of cold roast beef sandwich that had just been delivered to their table. “It would be better for you both.”

“I’ll be cautious and on guard, mother,” Clarke said tiredly. “Please don’t fret so.”

“I’m your mother, Clarke,” she retorted, nibbling daintily. “I’ll stop fretting once you’re home, safe again, in my sight.”

Clarke raised her eyebrows. “But mother, you’re hardly ever at home yourself.”

“You know what I mean.”

Clarke and her mother lived in their bayside home west of the city, in Seabright, ever since her father, Jacob Griffin, died tragically in a boating accident a few years ago, when Clarke still considered herself a child. However, since the war had begun, her mother had started renting a place in downtown Halifax and took up a position as a nurse in a convalescent home. Her mother had dabbled in nursing before she’d married her father, and Clarke could see now that she enjoyed getting to use those skills again. It gave her something to do, to stave off the grief and the loneliness that had been crouching on her shoulders for quite some time now. Given how much easier it was to get to the convalescent home from their Halifax flat instead of their home out on the bay, Clarke had spent the greater part of the last few years alone in the house, with only tutors, cooks, and housekeepers for company. Training to be a field nurse had breathed fresh air in her life, too.

Which is why she needed her mother to understand why she had to go on this assignment, no matter the cost it might exact from her future. 

“I have to go, mother. But I _will_ come home. I promise you.”

Clarke’s mother reached out across the table to grab her daughter’s hand, squeezing it.

… 

As soon as the train rolled to a halt in Penn Station, Clarke leapt out of her seat, her bag in hand, a grimace unwittingly plastered on her face. The days-long journey on the train had been cramped, monotonous, and lonely; she’d had so much time in solitude to work herself into an anxious state over being sent to the front that, by the end of the trip, she’d mostly resorted to sleeping as much as possible as the miles passed her by. 

She was ready to have her feet on solid ground and her lungs in the open air again.

As Clarke disembarked from the train and headed toward the station exit, she was made acutely aware of the new crush of the crowd around her. A man passing her tripped on her skirts, yet had the audacity to shoot _her_ a dirty glance for it. 

Even in Halifax, she’d never seen a place so packed and full of bustle. 

Clarke veered toward the wall and slipped out one of the multiple exit doors, fishing for her boarding pass in one of her sweater pockets. Finally locating it, she brought it up to her face for inspection.

The _RMS Lusitania._ Departing from Pier 54, two hours from now.

Clarke stepped across the sidewalk and waved her gloved hand in the air, hoping to summon a cab.

…

Clarke sidled up to a food stall, ordering a hot sandwich and a cup of tea. She was starving and tired of lukewarm, mediocre train food, and she wasn’t supposed to meet Captain Blake at the second-class boarding dock for another half-hour, according to her pocket watch. It felt strange to eat alone in public in such a crowded, busy area, but she gathered that that was just the way of things here. 

As she munched on her chicken and toasted bread, she stared down the short distance to the pier, to its round, iron gate and to the large ship already settled along the dock. Clarke had never sailed anywhere on a ship of that size before, and she couldn’t deny the sight of it unsettled her. It just looked so very much like all the photos she’d seen in the headlines about the _Titanic_ three years ago, next to paragraph upon paragraph about all of the lives lost to the freezing, merciless sea that spring night. Much like the spring nights she’d be sailing through with Captain Blake.

But this was a Cunard ship, not a White Star Line ship, and surely all of the ship lines had learned their lesson, had now begun to take proper precautions with the lifeboats on board. She had no reason to fear.

It was going to be fine.

At least, it would be on the ship-related aspect of the voyage. She had no idea how things with her traveling companion would play out.

Were wartime rules of etiquette different? Would she be expected to spend time regularly in public with a man she didn’t know well, or would she still be expected to keep a polite distance, more or less traveling alone in all but name? 

She wasn’t even sure if wartime etiquette existed. This ship was mostly booked by Americans, and they hadn’t joined the war yet. Many allies wondered if they ever would. No, only the sailing Canadians and British passengers were in wartime. For most on board, this was just another trip across the sea. Going to visit relatives or see the sights, not going to the front. 

Clarke wondered what Captain Blake would be like. No one at the nursing school had told her anything about him – only why she was to travel with him, and where they were supposed to meet up for the voyage. She wondered if he was young – perhaps an intrepid youth who’d managed to quickly climb the army ranks out of sheer dedication and skill, or if he was older, perhaps married and gruff and held at the station of captain for a long time now. Would he be pleasant? Happy to have her assigned to him and his unit? Or annoyed, and frustrated that he wasn’t getting another male medic?

Clarke’s mother said she hoped for both their sakes that he wasn’t handsome. Clarke found herself hoping so, too. She didn’t have time for feelings in this war. It wasn’t proper, and it wasn’t the place. It would bring nothing but harm.

Clarke finished the final bite of her sandwich and slipped her gloves back on before going to return her plate and cup. She thanked the little lad who had served her – buck-toothed and thirteen, fourteen at most. He tipped his cap at her genially, his smile crooked. She couldn’t help but smile back.

As she turned away from the stand, her eyes were drawn once more to the iron arch over Pier 54. 

It was time to find Captain Blake and board the ship taking her one step closer to the war.

… 

Clarke clutched her boarding pass in hand as she shifted from one foot to the other near the loading dock. It was twenty minutes until the ship was scheduled to leave the docks, and she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Captain Blake yet. At least, she didn’t think she had. A few straggling groups of displaced soldiers had filtered through the crowds of civilians boarding, but none of them had stopped to speak with her, and she’d been told that the captain would be looking for her at the boarding dock to escort her aboard. 

She wished it wasn’t against the rules to wear a nursing uniform during travel. It would be so much easier for her and her traveling companion to locate each other that way. But that strictly wasn’t allowed, so instead, she had on her plain blue wool coat and a tasseled tam on her head, her blonde waves pinned up in a no-fuss chignon. Nurses didn’t have ladies’ maids to do their hair, and Clarke had had to learn to make do herself. She’d found simplicity to be the easiest route. 

Her eyes searched the crowd for a man in uniform, and one that looked old enough to be a captain. As she scanned a new group of people entering the pier dozens of yards away, someone knocked roughly against her shoulder, startling her.

An impatient, disparaging voice ripped her from her search. “Are you really so self-absorbed as to be completely unaware that you’re blocking everyone’s path?” 

Astonished, then irritated, Clarke frowned up at whoever had spoken. It was a man in civilian clothing, several inches taller than her, with a dark, serious brow and black hair that seemed to only just be staying in the combed back style it had been forced into. 

“And are you so arrogant to think that something so insignificant is grounds to so blatantly insult a lady instead of just politely asking pardon?” Clarke struggled to maintain a collected countenance as she saw the man roll his eyes at her. She’d never seen worse manners from a stranger in her life. Who did he think he was, to speak so?

He cocked his head, smirking sourly. “Well then, if you’ll excuse me,” he said insincerely, picking up his worn leather portmanteau and sidling past her in a pointed fashion. 

_Good heavens, what kind of bees crawled into his bonnet_? Clarke huffed in annoyance, no longer in the mood to scan the crowds for her still-absent companion. She was just going to board the ship now, on her own. She was sure she’d see Captain Blake on board – she’d been told they were booked with adjoining rooms, for the sake of safety. Though she technically wasn’t his subordinate, he was still tacitly charged with chaperoning her over the long voyage, despite the lack of conventionality of the situation. A chaperone should, of course, have been a family member or a married female friend, but war was a strange time, and called for strange measures. 

“Welcome aboard the _Lusitania_ , Miss Griffin,” the officer checking tickets said with a friendly bow. He scanned the passenger manifest on his small, handheld board. “Ah, I must advise you that your stateroom assignment has been altered. Due to high overbooking of second-class rooms, we’ve had to move some of our second-class passengers into first class. Free of charge, of course. I hope you don’t mind, though I cannot imagine why you would,” he smiled. “It looks like you’ve been relocated to B-Deck, rooms B85-87. A parlor suite. It’s your lucky day, miss.”

Clarke couldn’t help but smile as she was handed the key to her rooms. Not only was this her first time traveling across the Atlantic, but she’d gotten lucky enough to be moved to a first-class suite. She knew she certainly shouldn’t let herself grow accustomed to luxury, especially given where she was going, but it was still nice.

As the elevator line looked long, Clarke chose to take the stairs to B deck, and they seemed to go on and on as she climbed. She was surprised at how light and airy the first-class decks were – for some reason she’d imagined all ships to be dark and plain, with tight spaces and narrow interiors. The deck she was on was just as fine as any hotel lobby in the nicer parts of Halifax. Once she found the door to her rooms, she noticed that she was right near the entrance to the first class dining saloon. Glancing both ways in case of disapproving attendants, she sneaked toward the double doors, peeking inside. 

She gasped at the sight of the sparkling white columns, of the plush carpet and the opulent white-and-gold dome that reigned magnificently over the center of the sprawling dining room. Was this where she was to have dinner every night? It was so beautiful. 

Gathering her wits, Clarke backed away from the door and tiptoed up to the lock for her own staterooms. As she pushed the door open, she was astonished to find a luxuriously furnished pair of rooms, resplendent with velvet upholstery and shiny wood paneling. It even looked as if she had her own private bath – perhaps the most extravagant feature of all. Grinning, she set her small suitcase on the thick rug near the richly-designed sofa in her private parlor and sank onto the cushions. What good fortune! 

Wishing to watch the ship leave the dock, Clarke locked her suite door behind her and walked down the hall, searching for an exit out onto the promenade. Finding the open-air deck mostly empty, she sidled up to the railing, leaning onto it on her forearms and letting the sea air whip across her face. She felt the wind tug some of her hair loose from her chignon, but she didn’t care just now. She’d fix it before dinner. 

From her vantage point, she could see the lapping of the frothy waves, the small boats puttering in and out of the harbor, and part of the growing city skyline from afar. It was exciting, to be sure, but it was all so busy – the noise and the smoke made her wish for the clean, salty air of her home on the bay, of the green grass waving in the wind and the air polluted only with the sounds of calling birds and the changing tides. 

But no matter now – she was about to leave both the peace of the countryside _and_ the bustle of the city behind. 

“Is that young woman alone?” She heard a whisper behind her. She turned to see a younger and older woman, finely dressed and arm-in-arm, strolling along the deck, giving her a curious, disapproving eye. 

So it was still going to be like this, then. Clarke couldn’t say she was surprised. The advent of a war was apparently still not enough to change people’s minds about the rules of civility they’d been clinging so hard to in decades past.

She wondered faintly if she’d find _any_ friends on this voyage, given the appearance of scandal in her situation. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a ship officer, dressed in his sharp uniform and cap, striding across the promenade, purpose in his step. 

Clarke stepped toward him. “Excuse me, sir, do you know when we’ll be leaving the dock? Should it not be any minute now?”

The officer paused, giving Clarke a slight nod. “You must not have heard, madam. Our departure has been delayed a bit, by two hours. Just a small issue with some transfer of additional crew, nothing serious. Don’t you worry,” he smiled briefly and nodded once more, continuing on his way.

Two hours? If Clarke stayed on the promenade in this cold wind for that long, she’d certainly come away with ruined skin and unsalvageable hair. Yes, it was best if she went back in.

Once again in her parlor, Clarke rifled through her suitcase and retrieved the only novel she’d had room for amongst her belongings: _Anne of Green Gables._ The book had been released when she was eleven, and she’d loved it ever since. Though it was set in neighboring Prince Edward Island instead of her home in Nova Scotia, there was something very special about the world of a book based very nearly on your own. Reading it now as a grown-up brought her comfort, like that of a warm cup of tea or a soft quilt draped over one’s lap against a winter draft. 

Clarke unpinned her hat and settled onto the sofa, figuring that reading would easily pass the time before the ship took its leave of New York. She wondered briefly if first-class passengers could ring for tea, but she had no idea how to find out, so she let it be.

Clarke was deeply engrossed in Anne’s folly of smashing Gilbert’s slate over his head when a knock sounded on the door that adjoined her parlor to another. 

It must be Captain Blake, at last.

Clarke stood up too quickly, her book falling haphazardly onto the sofa cushion. She hadn’t even styled her hair back yet! But there was no time now.

“Come in,” she called, hoping he couldn’t detect the note of nerves in her voice. 

She’d never been alone in a room before with an adult man that wasn’t her father.

The heavy, polished wooden door swung open, and shiny oak-colored boots emerged onto her rug. Suddenly shy, Clarke had to force her eyes upward, trailing the sturdy form of a man, clothed in the tan-colored wool of an army uniform. Gilding on his sleeves, indicating his rank of captain. A shiny leather belt, with a loop empty that usually would hold a knife. The rounded, short-billed cap of a military officer. 

And that face.

The face of the man who’d so rudely pushed passed her at the pier. 

“ _You?_ ” They both spluttered in unison, equally taken aback.

“You’re Miss Griffin?”

“You’re Captain Blake?” Clarke’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, in disdain. She was so caught off guard that she’d forgotten to be embarrassed about her messy hair.

“I didn’t have time to change out of my civilian clothing before boarding the ship,” he said sourly, his eyes narrowing as he gave her a cursory up-and-down glance. “Do you mean to tell me that _you’re_ the skilled new nurse that’s supposed to be my substitute for a medic?” His voice was derisive as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. 

“I am,” Clarke replied curtly. “Might I ask why you sound so surprised?”

He shook his head in annoyance, then swiftly crossed the room. Clarke’s heart sputtered as he reached for her wrists, drawing her hands up between them.

“Look at these hands,” he said sharply, pressing his thumb over the pads of her palm. “Soft. You’ve never done a hard day of work in your life. You won’t last an hour out there.”

Heat boiled up into Clarke’s cheeks as she ripped her hands from his grasp. “You don’t know anything about me,” she snapped back angrily. What on earth was _wrong_ with this man? Was he raised by wolves?

“I don’t need to know anything about you,” he retorted. “It’s very clear that this arrangement won’t work out. I was skeptical in the first place, but now that I’ve seen you, I’m not only skeptical, I’m _convinced_ there’s been a mistake.”

Clarke tried not to grind her teeth as she fumed, taking a step back from him. “I’m the only girl in the entirety of Halifax’s nursing school that’s being sent to the front. Everyone else was placed in convalescent homes or makeshift hospitals in England. I may not have seen battle, but I know what I need to do. And others more skilled than I am have faith that I can do it. Should that not be good enough for you?”

“No, it isn’t,” he said dismissively. “However, the order of your assignment has come from over my head, so it seems I have no choice. How I _look forward to_ having to babysit a little princess in the trenches.”

“You _won’t,_ ” Clarke growled back. She was so furious right now, she had half a mind to get off the ship, take a train right back to Halifax and demand a different assignment. How could she possibly work on the front lines, in such a high stress environment, with a man of Captain Blake’s ilk?

He didn’t even want her there.

She’d never once considered that the man escorting her would already hate her before he’d even met her.

She couldn’t deny that it stung her a little. She knew things weren’t going to be easy, but she’d been counting on her traveling companion to be her one ally, for now, at least.

“Listen, Captain Blake,” Clarke continued in a low voice. “I have no way of proving myself to you now, but I will. You’ll see. I’ll be just as dedicated as any other medic you’ve had. I _want_ to do this. My mother, she was a nurse before me. I _can_ do this.” 

Captain Blake snorted. “I can’t believe your father even consented to you doing this. Did he run out of ponies to give you to occupy your time?”

“My father is dead,” Clarke nearly snarled back, her voice deadly and low.

The captain’s expression sobered slightly. 

“For that, I am sorry,” he finally managed to say. “However, I still think that it’s a total mistake for you to be here. Why don’t you go home while you still have a chance?” He nodded toward the door.

“Oh, believe me, from the second you walked in, I’ve thought about it,” Clarke retorted bitterly, aiming to wound. “But if I’m not mistaken, my train journey was much longer than yours, and I feel no desire to take it again so soon.”

The captain’s eyes narrowed, and he stepped a few feet closer to her, seemingly unconsciously. “Tell me, are all of the rich society girls from Nova Scotia as insufferable as you are?”

Clarke squinted in his direction. Were those freckles dusted across his nose and cheeks? How did someone with such warm skin have freckles, too? Frowning at the distraction, Clarke shook herself mentally. 

“I doubt you’ll find many worse than I am, Captain Blake. Don’t let your hatred of me taint your opinion of the entire province. It’s a beautiful place. Much more lovely than Toronto, I can imagine.”

“I’m sure that it is,” he said drily. “As that’s not particularly difficult to accomplish.”

Clarke sighed. “Captain Blake, I’m really still quite tired from my journey. Must I continue to stand here arguing with you in my parlor for the rest of this voyage, or might I be left alone?”

He glanced around at her words, as if he’d forgotten where he was. His eyes trailed up to her messy, half-fallen hair. “Of course,” he said flatly, giving her a curt nod before turning his back and disappearing behind the closing door.

Clarke sank back down onto the couch, struggling to absorb what had just happened.

Was she really about to spend not only the next week on board this ship with only that _terrible_ man for an acquaintance, but for the foreseeable future on the front lines as well?

The luck Clarke had felt at the sight of her upgraded staterooms earlier felt quite dissipated by now.

Could she do this?

She frowned at herself. Of course she could do this. She _wanted_ to do this.

She wasn’t going to let a rude army captain deter her from that. 

It was no matter. She didn’t need his approval for this assignment. She just needed to do her job, and that was that. 

She’d just been hoping for a friend, as well. 

Sighing, she slumped back against the sofa, already dreading dinner. They’d almost certainly have seating assigned next to each other, and she’d rather not have the sight of him ruin her appetite at every meal.

She groaned. Alas, there was nothing to be done. 

… 

It wasn’t until the third day of the voyage that Bellamy’s seasickness had subsided. It was embarrassing, but it happened every time he sailed. He had a stomach strong enough for war, but not for the shifting floors of an ocean liner over rough waters. Thankfully, it never lasted the entire trip.

He was almost grateful for the nausea this time around – it gave him an excuse to avoid his new “medic”. He still couldn’t believe that they’d assigned someone like Miss Griffin to his unit. It wasn’t that she was a woman – his little sister, Octavia, was also small and lovely, yet tough as nails when she needed to be – it was that they’d sent a nurse so very privileged and clearly unprepared for all that was ahead. Bellamy was sure that she’d only agreed to nursing training out of some kind of romantic notion – that she’d be soothing fevered brows of handsome soldiers or reading to them at their bedsides. He couldn’t possibly fathom what had made the head nurses at the training program choose her. 

If she was the best they had, Bellamy was certain that they were all doomed. 

Due to feeling so ill, Bellamy had only attended meals in the dining saloon on and off. He knew he’d been taciturn, likely bordering on rude, to not only Clarke, but to their entire assigned table full of passengers, but he didn’t feel well enough to make the effort. Besides, he wasn’t here to make friends.

The more friends he made, the more people he left behind when he headed for the front. 

He already hated leaving Octavia behind. He knew that when it came down to it, she had a good head on her shoulders, and she was in safe hands with her friend Harper’s family back in Toronto. 

But he was the only family she had left. They’d never known their father, and their mother had been killed in a factory explosion years ago. 

He had to survive this war. He couldn’t leave her alone in the world.

Which is why he was rankled that the medic assigned to him now seemed to be a helpless, misguided little society girl. 

He’d noticed she’d mostly been quiet at dinner time too. She certainly didn’t try to start any conversations with him after their disastrous introduction, and he couldn’t help but see that the other passengers at their table didn’t try very hard to hold conversation with her, either.

It was likely because they could see that she had no ring on her left hand, and no family traveling with her in sight. He’d heard her explain that she was a nurse traveling to work at the front, but the group around the table didn’t seem particularly convinced.

Bellamy had even bothered to speak up about it once, to corroborate Miss Griffin’s explanation, but it didn’t seem to help.

They likely all thought the two of them were eloping and embroiled in scandal, which made Bellamy want to roll his eyes to the high heavens. The two of them? Romantically involved? He nearly choked on the thought of it. 

When they reached France, she’d just become a burden to him and his unit, and probably scarred for life after the first few weeks of seeing battle as well. He wished dearly that he had the authority to have her shifted back to a field hospital or even a convalescent home in London. 

But he didn’t. 

The tinkle of silverware and the blanket of murmured dinner conversation across the room was suddenly interrupted by one of the ship’s lower-ranked officers. His face was red from exertion as he burst through the double doors, and his beady eyes scanned the room frantically.

“Do I have any doctors in this room?” The man called out in a rushed voice. “There is a badly injured worker in the engine room, and at present I cannot locate the ship’s physician. Please, is there anyone?”

Bellamy startled as Miss Griffin stood abruptly out of her seat, causing a slight commotion as her napkin and silverware tumbled to the floor.

“I am a nurse, sir! Let me tend to him,” she called in response, hurrying in his direction.

Still blustery, his gloved hands atremble, the officer nodded, motioning her past him and into the corridor.

Shocked, Bellamy’s eyes collided with those of Mr. Rosenstein, a portly old gentleman seated directly across from him at their table. The man’s bushy brows lifted.

“Well, Captain Blake, are you not going to attend to your charge?”

Bellamy tilted his head. He hadn’t thought to follow her.

He probably ought to do that.

Sighing, he rose, tossing his napkin into his abandoned seat, and hurried into the hallway.

He noticed Miss Griffin near the end of the corridor alongside the officer and jogged to catch up.

“You’re here?” she asked in surprise, her tone suggesting that he wasn’t quite welcome.

“You shouldn’t be going alone,” he retorted, not looking at her as they turned down and into a narrow, dark stairwell. Bellamy frowned. “Definitely not.” 

They descended, one, two, three, four, five decks, each level growing dimmer and hotter. Beads of sweat began to appear on Bellamy’s forehead. Why did this have to happen in the boiler room, of all places?

“He’s down here, miss,” the officer said, pointing down the smoky, sooty, steaming boiler room. “A loose piece of pipe fell on his hand. Mangled it up. He was yelling something fierce when I left.”

Bellamy followed the two of them, squinting in the low light. They quickly came upon a grimy, whimpering man, clutching his right hand to his chest, his eyes screwed shut in agony. 

Miss Griffin kneeled down, heedless of the soot dirtying the simple-yet-elegant design of her pale violet dinner gown. She settled herself to the man’s eye level.

“Hello, sir, could you please let me see your hand? I’m here to help. I’m a nurse. Don’t fret,” she hushed him, tugging a handkerchief from the reticule she’d carried with her. She glanced back at the officer above her. “Sir, could you fetch me some clean linen, some flat butter knives, and some hot water? I need them.”

The officer nodded, frantically turning and hustling back up the stairs. 

Miss Griffin turned back to the injured man. “Now, can you show me your hand? I’m going to take care of you, all right?”

The man continued to whimper as he slowly held out his right arm, wincing with every movement. Bellamy’s already uneasy stomach protested as he saw the man’s hand: it was gashed up, covered in blood and already bruising. Several of his fingers were bent at odd angles.

His eyes shifted back to Miss Griffin. She didn’t flinch as she carefully took his wrist in her hand. “I know that must hurt terribly, sir. What’s your name, would you tell me?”

“I-it’s Charlie, ma’am,” he stuttered, his voice thick with pain.

“Charlie, what a fine name. Well, I’m Miss Griffin, but you can call me Clarke, if you’d like. I’m going to set your fingers back for you so you can use them again in no time, does that sound all right?” 

Bellamy noticed her hair drooping in the smoky air, growing damp and clinging against her neck in straggly waves. Her face was darkening with soot. He was sure his was, too.

He couldn’t help but be surprised at the calmness in her demeanor. 

The man nodded, his eyes still half-shut in discomfort.

The ship officer reappeared, carrying a small pail of water, a fistful of dull butter knives, and a handful of ragged but clean-looking linen. 

“Now, Charlie, I’m going to set your fingers for you, but first I’m going to have to move the bones back into place so they’ll heal properly. This part will hurt a bit. Do you think you can stand it?”

Miss Griffin waited for him to nod, and then she motioned for the supplies from the officer. Her attention then turned to Bellamy.

“Captain Blake, I’d appreciate your assistance for this. Can you hold his wrist in place while I realign his fingers?”

Bellamy nodded. He didn’t want to be near the man for the sound of those bones cracking, but what choice did he have? He wasn’t about to let this little rich girl upstage him. He’d certainly heard and seen worse so far in this war. That still didn’t mean he’d gotten quite used to it, though.

He crouched next to her, pushing his hair back from his brow. It was so humid and smoky down here that all his efforts to comb and tame his dark curls had been undone just in the last few minutes. 

She nodded briefly in thanks. “Now, grip his wrist here. Hold it firmly,” she instructed. “He’s going to squirm, but he can’t help it. It hurts. Try to keep him still without hurting him any further, all right?” She asked.

Bellamy nodded again.

“All right, Charlie, the worst is about to be over. Can you close your eyes for me? I’ll make this quick. Then we can set it and send you to rest.” She reached over and tore a strip from the linen, twisting it into a sort of rudimentary rope. “Here, bite down on this if it hurts too much. It’ll help.” 

Charlie opened his mouth dutifully and bit down on the linen. 

“Hold him, Captain Blake,” she commanded, and quickly, before Charlie could open his eyes again, she began cracking the small bones of the man’s dirty, bleeding fingers back into place. Bellamy averted his eyes. A horrible, strangled sound got stuck somewhere in Charlie’s throat.

“There we are,” she said soothingly. “Everything back in its right place.” She dipped a fresh swath of linen into the pail of hot water and gently washed the blood and soot away from the injured hand. 

“Oh, hell’s bells,” Miss Griffin muttered, and Bellamy blinked in surprise. Did she just swear?

“Officer, do you know where I might get some liquor? I need it to sterilize these gashes, and I forgot to ask for it earlier.”

The officer sheepishly reached into his breast pocket and extracted a small metal flask.

“Excellent,” she replied, popping the top and pouring a little of the sharp-smelling liquid over the wounds. “What fortune that you had this.” She returned the flask to the officer, whose face was a deep red underneath the gathering soot.

“Captain Blake, will you be so kind as to help me again while I set his fingers?” Bellamy gave a quick nod.

“Thank you,” she said briskly. “Just hold the little knives in place while I bind them with linen, if you please.”

Bellamy did as she asked, and sat silently, listening to her talk to Charlie as she worked.

“I know these seem a bit unorthodox, Charlie,” she murmured. “And they are. But I don’t have a stocked medical kit with me yet, you see, and I didn’t know where one was on the ship. I’ll find you tomorrow and replace these awful knives with proper splints, does that sound all right? Do you think you can manage with these just for one evening?”

“Yes, miss,” Charlie said obligingly, his whimpering nearly stopped now. 

Miss Griffin began to hum, her voice low and soothing as she continued to wrap the man’s makeshift splints. She hummed well enough for Bellamy to realize the tune, one that had been a great hit back when he was a child. At some point, she’d begun to sing the words.

_“That's why I'm lonely, no home at all_

_I broke her heart, pet, after the ball.”_

Charlie had begun to hum along too, his voice crackly and rough.

“A bit of an old tune for you, lassie,” he said, finally breathing a bit easier.

“My father used to sing it to me when I was little and let me dance standing on his toes,” she replied, smiling up at him briefly. 

“Aye, and I bet he’d still do the same, with a sweet daughter like you,” he said kindly.

“He died a few years ago, I’m afraid,” she said quietly, concentrating on wrapping his last finger.

Bellamy frowned. She’d mentioned it before, but said nothing more about it until now. What had happened?

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, miss,” he replied soberly, shaking his head in sorrow.

“It’s all right, Charlie. If there’s any bright side, at least I don’t have to worry to death over him going off to war, like I know he would have,” she shook her head. “Now it’s just me going off to war instead,” she laughed humorlessly.

“To the front, miss?” The officer standing over them said. “Surely not.” 

“I am, yes,” she affirmed, groaning as she finally got to her feet. She wiped her sweaty brow with the back of her hand, only smearing around the soot smudged all over her face. Bellamy was willing to bet he looked just as dirty. “They’re running out of medics, so they’re sending some nurses to mitigate the situation in the trenches. I guess I’m about to be one of them, now.”

“Godspeed then, lass,” Charlie said from below. “Heaven knows the boys need pretty girls like you to come home to when this is all over.”

Bellamy thought he detected a deep blush on her cheeks under all of the soot.

“All right then, Charlie, do you think you can go back to your room all right and rest for tonight? Captain Blake and I will come find you tomorrow so I can replace those splints.” She turned to the officer. “Sir, can you have a glass of brandy sent to his room tonight, just to dull the pain a bit? You can have it added to my tab, it’s all right.”

“No, I’ll cover it,” Bellamy heard himself saying suddenly. It seemed that he’d subconsciously decided to be gentlemanly, in an attempt to make up for his general uselessness in the current situation.

Miss Griffin looked at him with as much surprise as he felt at himself.

“Thank you, Captain Blake.” She nodded at him stiffly.

“I’ll see him to his quarters and be sure that he gets that drink, miss,” The officer nodded, gesturing them all toward the stairs. 

“What room are you in, Charlie? So we can find you tomorrow.”

“On F deck, ma’am,” he replied. “Room 34.”

She nodded. “I hope you get good rest until then, Charlie. Good night.”

He thanked her again as the small group of them slowly trod back up the stairs. Charlie and the officer turned off one level up, while Bellamy and his companion traveled up another four.

They walked up side-by-side in silence, exhausted by the heat and the stress of the situation. They were both damp with sweat and covered head to toe in soot, and as they climbed higher and higher, they began to attract more and more attention from fellow passengers, who all still looked quite pristine in their evening attire.

As they climbed, Bellamy found himself struggling to maintain his grudge against the girl. She’d kept completely calm in the face of a bloody, gruesome, dirty situation, and handled it with the utmost competency and kindness. He couldn’t help but be a little impressed.

He still didn’t think she was cut out for the front lines, of course. He didn’t think many people were, really. And he still thought it would be better for her to go home, back to the safety of high society and the comforts of home in Halifax.

But he also thought that, perhaps, she wasn’t the _worst_ nurse he could’ve been sent. That perhaps there was a chance she could survive down in the destroyed, muddy fields of France. 

As they finally reached their adjoining pair of suites, she turned to him tiredly, her face comically smudged and her hair dreadfully disheveled. 

“I don’t know about you, Captain Blake, but I’ve never been more grateful in my life for an en-suite private bath,” she murmured, her shoulders slumping a bit in spite of the good posture that he was sure had been instilled in her since childhood. 

He murmured in agreement. She sighed.

“Captain, I know you don’t want me here. I know that we got off on the wrong foot. But I hope we can start over.” She turned toward him more fully, her whole body facing him. “I asked Charlie to call me by my christian name. Since we’re going to be stuck together for quite some time, in quite unusual circumstances, I hope you will call me by it as well.”

“That doesn’t seem very proper,” Bellamy replied, frowning. “What will everyone think if I go around addressing you so informally? Nothing good, I’d imagine.”

Her lips turned down at the corners. “You’re right. But - to be truthful - I really just don't care. I hate being called ‘Miss Griffin’. It makes me feel like my mother.” She wrinkled her sooty nose delicately. 

Bellamy tried not to smile at the absurdity of her expression. “I’ll consider it,” he said in what he hoped was a more neutral tone.

“Thank you,” she said in a more relaxed tone. “I would very much appreciate that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go try to rectify this situation,” she said, gesturing to her general person. “I look as if I’ve climbed down a chimney.”

He nodded, and she pushed open her parlor door, disappearing to the other side with only a quiet click of the lock.

 _Clarke_.

He liked it better than “Miss Griffin.”

And maybe, he liked her better than he’d initially thought, too.

He wondered if he’d give her the satisfaction of calling her what she’d asked. Right now, he’d say the odds were a coin toss.

Shaking his head, he opened the door to his own rooms, making straight for the bath as well.

… 

Despite the crackling warmth from her small fireplace, Clarke tugged on her heavy, rosebud-patterned dressing gown over her nightshift. By the end of her bath, her water had gone cold, and the dampness of her hair made her shiver.

She was exhausted. The oppressive heat of the boiler room had taken so much energy from her, and it had taken ages to scrub the soot not only from her person, but from her dinner gown and shoes. She was infinitely grateful her mother wasn’t here to scold her about ruining her fine clothing during a time when new fabrics and lace were scarce. 

It didn’t matter very much to Clarke. She doubted she’d be wearing an evening gown with any regularity once she reached the front. 

She nestled into the sofa, picking up the Brontë novel she’d borrowed from the ship’s small lending library. With a traveling companion as unfriendly as Captain Blake had been, she’d had plenty of time to read, and finished _Anne of Green Gables_ in under twenty-four hours of boarding the ship.

Gravity seemed to shift suddenly, and Clarke clung to the arm of the sofa to steady herself. Since they’d returned from the boiler room, the ship had apparently encountered rough waters, and the rocking and pitching had become a bit more pronounced than usual. It didn’t bother Clarke, but she hadn’t been thrilled earlier when an unexpected tilt had sent her careening into the edge of the mantle. 

On the other side of the door that adjoined their two suites, Clarke heard a faint retching sound. 

Oh, dear. He was seasick again, then.

Clarke sighed as she exchanged her dressing gown for her blue wool coat.

She opened her door and peered out into the corridor, spotting an attendant. 

“Excuse me, sir? Could you have some ginger tea brought up to me posthaste, please?”

He nodded, turning to disappear down the nearest stairwell.

Clarke waited for the tea to arrive before she hesitantly knocked on the door adjoining her suite with Captain Blake’s. They hadn’t acknowledged its existence since that first time when they'd met, despite being nearly halfway through the voyage. Clarke supposed it would be more proper to leave things that way, but she couldn’t help but take pity on the man, however unfriendly he might be. He’d been ill on and off since they’d set sail because of the choppy seas. 

“Captain Blake?” She murmured, leaning against the dark oak paneling. “Could you open the door, please?”

A few moments passed, and she nearly fell forward as the door she’d been leaning on swung open abruptly. The captain faced her, nonplussed, his skin a bit green-looking and covered in a thin sheen of sweat. 

“It sounds like you’re ill again,” she said, holding out the cup of tea. “I’ve called you up some ginger tea to soothe your stomach. It ought to help a good deal.”

Captain Blake gazed down at the cup in what looked like faint surprise. He was dressed in civilian clothing again, a simple white shirt and corduroy trousers held up by suspenders. 

“I doubt that will make much difference,” he said in a paper-thin voice, eyeing the tea with a dubious expression.

Clarke frowned. “Well, fetch your coat, then,” she countered. “The cold air will do you good, if nothing else will. So will keeping your eyes on the horizon, if the moon is bright enough to illuminate it tonight.”

Captain Blake squinted at her, seeming to study her before a moment. Something in his eyes settled into resignation, and he nodded, turning to lift his coat from its hook.

The two of them walked down the mostly empty corridor and out onto the promenade. It was late, and only a few other giddy passengers and more serious patrolling officers were out on the deck. The night wind was bracing, an icy kiss upon the skin – one that no doubt soothed the sickly fever of Captain Blake’s brow.

“It’s truly astounding how ill the sea manages to keep you,” Clarke said as they both leaned against the balcony railing. “My father said it used to make him ill as well, until he eventually got past it.”

“And how did he do that?” Captain Blake asked weakly, sipping his tea with less protest than she’d expected from him. 

Clarke shrugged, pulling her coat more snugly against her. “He just sailed enough that it didn’t bother him anymore.”

“I wish that that happened to everyone with seasickness,” he bemoaned.

“I suppose it’s fortunate that you’re a captain in the army and not the navy, then,” Clarke responded with some amusement. “That’s by design, I imagine.”

He nodded in affirmation. 

Clarke tugged her cap further down over her ears as the night air whipped past her. Suddenly, she felt the teacup Captain Blake had been holding being shoved back in her hands.

“I think I might be sick again,” he said in a strangled voice, pacing quickly away from her. She held her breath, waiting. Moments passed, but he was not sick over the railing. Clarke smiled faintly as she remembered something her father had taught her.

“Come back over here,” she called, swiping a stray lock of hair back from her face. “Let’s try something different. Give me your wrist.” She set the teacup down on a bench behind her, then held her hand out expectantly.

“What?” he muttered. “What are you going to do?”

“Have some faith in me,” Clarke nearly groaned. “I helped Charlie when I said I would, did I not? And he was certainly in much more dire straits than you are now.”

Clarke tried not to bite her lip in frustration as he hesitated. Why were men so obstinate about not accepting help, often to their own detriment?

Eyeing her suspiciously, he finally stepped forward, offering his left wrist to her. She took it in her hands, pushing back his sleeve, and pressed her three middle fingers against the inside of his wrist, just under the crease of his palm. She slowly began to count under her breath.

“What – what are you doing?” He stuttered, trying to pull away.

“Be still!” 

“Then tell me what you’re doing!”

Clarke frowned. “It’s something my father learned from another sailor once,” she finally answered. “Called a pressure point. It’s supposed to bring quick relief from sickness due to motion. He showed it to me once on a rough carriage ride when I was younger and had started feeling ill.”

As her fingers pressed down against the hot skin of his wrist, she looked up to see that some color was returning to his face, and that his breathing was more even.

“Feeling better?” She asked, trying not to sound smug.

“A little,” he conceded, and she was both pleased and surprised by his honesty. 

Clarke realized that she’d never touched a man like this, alone, outside of a strictly medical setting. Color crept to her cheeks, and she released him, turning back to the sea beyond the railing.

“You must miss him,” the captain’s voice spoke up suddenly, quieter, softer than usual.

“I do,” she admitted. And she did. Every day. “But like I told Charlie earlier, I can’t help but feel that it’s almost better this way. I already know his fate. I won’t have to spend months – or, god forbid, years – worrying about him somewhere on the continent, wondering every moment if he’s all right or being torn to pieces by the bullets of the enemy.”

She felt the captain’s gaze turn sharply toward her. She knew those weren’t the words a lady should use. Too vulgar, too blunt. But she’d been trained for war, and now she was going to war. She saw no need to paint it in a false light. 

“Are you afraid of going back to the front, Captain Blake?” She asked abruptly. She startled even herself, but it was something she’d been wondering for days now, and had either felt too afraid or too annoyed to try asking him about it. 

He was silent for a moment, staring out over the sea. Clarke couldn’t help but note the strength of his profile, silhouetted in the golden lamplight. A sharp jaw. A fine nose. Hair that, now abandoned by a comb, curled riotously over his forehead. She couldn’t say for certain his age, but he looked very young to be a captain. Maybe 22, 23 at most. 

“I know I must do what has to be done,” he finally answered, his voice gravelly. “But it would be a lie to say I feel no fear. I’m the only family my little sister, Octavia, has left in the world. It pains me to think that if something happens to me, I will leave her so alone.”

Clarke hadn’t realized the captain and his sister were orphans. She’d known about Octavia from his brief conversations with others at meal times, but she hadn’t caught anywhere that their family was now just a family of two. How frightening that must be for him.

“Well, Captain Blake, it’s my job not to let anything happen to you. And, if there is still some trouble, and something does, I will find your sister. I’ll make sure that she is in good hands.”

The captain didn’t move, didn’t answer her. She wondered if she’d been too forward and said the wrong thing. She almost certainly had, now that she reflected upon it. 

“Oh, I just mean that-”

“Thank you,” he said, interrupting her. “It does put me at some ease, to hear you say so.” His chin dropped. “Though, I hate to remind you, Miss Griffin, but you haven’t been to the front. If something bad befalls me, then, given you’ll be the unit medic, there’s a fair chance something bad will be befalling you as well.”

Clarke shivered involuntarily at his grim warning. It wasn’t something she wanted to think about. It wasn’t something she could _allow_ herself to think about, or she’d lose her wits. 

She shook her head. “I won’t allow it.”

Captain Blake almost smiled at her response. “Whatever you say, Miss Griffin.”

Clarke winced at the formality. She hated it. Everyone near to her called her Clarke when they were speaking informally, and though she wouldn’t call Captain Blake a friend, at least now they seemed to be able to converse without breathing fire and spitting barbs at each other.

“Will you not call me Clarke while we speak so informally?” She asked him for the second time this evening. “I really do prefer it, and I certainly can’t imagine decorum will matter for very much longer where I’m concerned.” 

He gazed at her for a few moments. “Clarke,” he finally said. “Are you sure, little princess? You want me to call you Clarke?”

Her shoulders fell in relief when she heard him speak her name. “I do. Please, captain.”

He nodded sharply, once. “Then I will. At least tonight, you’ve proved not to be as insufferable as I first thought, so I suppose I can give in to this one request.”

Clarke wrinkled her nose. “I’ve cured your seasickness! I’d say that’s _much_ more than just ‘proving not to be insufferable’ if you ask me!” 

“Fair enough,” he grumbled. 

Talking with him in this way really made it seem as if she was with someone else young, still a little new to the adult world. His stiff demeanor, his silence, his uniform aged him, making it seem as if he’d already become a grouchy old bachelor, tired of the world at the ripe old age of 23. But now, in his wool cap and faded coat, in the casual tone of his voice and the careless way his body leaned against the railing, the added years seemed to fade away.

Maybe _he_ wasn’t as insufferable as _she’d_ first thought.

It seemed as if, through the events of tonight, they’d reached some kind of fragile, tentative truce.

She was glad. If she was headed straight into the powder keg of this war, she wanted it to be alongside someone she got along with, someone who respected her. Someone she could trust.

She didn’t know about trust yet, but she had hope that they could build it. 

“Shall we go in?” she proposed reluctantly. “It’s quite late, I think. Are you feeling all right now?”

He nodded, gesturing toward the door that would lead them back to the interior corridor.

He followed her into her suite, as they’d forgotten in their rush to pick up his keys.

As his hand fell to the door handle that would send him back to his own rooms, Clarke watched him stop and turn back toward her, his eyes resting on her own intently.

“You know, it feels odd to call you Clarke when you continue to address me by my rank. Why don’t…” he trailed off, looking sheepish suddenly. “You should call me Bellamy, if you like.”

Clarke blinked. She’d almost forgotten that Captain Blake _had_ a first name.

 _Bellamy._ It was a lovely one. Lovelier than any name she would have imagined herself. “ _Beautiful friend_ ,” she translated roughly, smiling faintly back at him.

He ducked his head. “My mother fancied it. Will you use it?” He asked again.

“I will.” She bowed her head in appreciation. “Thank you, Bellamy.”

“Sometimes it’s nice to be more than just a soldier,” is all he said in response as he disappeared behind the softly closing door.

Clarke stood anchored in place for some time afterward, her mind both racing and blissfully still all at once. 

… 

The afternoon sun streamed in through the large windows of the writing room and library on the first class deck as Clarke finished penning a letter to her mother. She’d been a little surprised earlier when Captain Blake – Bellamy – had asked if she’d like to go there with him after luncheon, but she was pleased that he even thought to ask, and had readily accepted. He sat in a corner, just behind her writing desk, reading a handsomely-bound copy of _The Iliad._ Clarke noticed that the combination of the warm room and the slight turbulence was making him look a little green again.

“Captain, would you care to take a stroll out on the promenade?” She leaned over to ask him as she sealed her letter and dropped it in the wooden mailing box.

He glanced up at her, and she thought she detected his shoulders drooping slightly in relief. 

“I would, thank you,” he answered as he got to his feet, tucking the volume he’d been reading back into its place on the half-shelf below. He didn’t smile, but he did offer his arm to her, which she surprised herself by taking without hesitation.

The wind whipped past them as they stepped out onto the outdoor promenade. The line of lifeboats, straight as soldiers and guarding the deck, partially obscured their view of the sea, but the chill in the air was enough to be a refreshing change of surroundings. The wide collar of Clarke’s black-and-white striped day dress flapped in the wind quite absurdly, and she couldn’t help but laugh. She covered her mouth with a gloved hand, hoping she didn’t seem too unsophisticated. Her mother had always chided her for her “boisterous, unladylike” laugh.

Bellamy looked down at her, seeming faintly amused.

Two officers with their heads bent together were talking in front of them, and didn’t seem to notice that they had company coming up behind them.

“Did you see the latest telegram?” Clarke heard one of them murmur to the other. “A german U-boat has just sunk the _Earl of Lathom_ off the coast of Ireland. In the same path that we’re currently sailing on.”

Clarke’s blood froze in her veins.

“The captain is confident that if we pick up speed, the _U-20_ will pay us no mind. We are transporting civilians, after all,” the other officer replied, though his own voice sounded less than confident.

“We’re sailing into a _warzone_ , Frank,” the first officer hissed. “Every day we draw nearer to Ireland, we draw nearer to what I’m certain is mortal peril. I cannot abide it.” 

“And what _choice_ do we have, Erwin? We aren’t at the helm of this ship. We cannot simply grab the wheel and turn it around. Plenty of ocean liners have sailed safely through those waters, including this very ship.” 

“I hope you’re right,” the one called Erwin replied as they turned the deck corner and disappeared out of sight.

Clarke halted at the railing, turning to look up at her companion. Bellamy’s eyes met hers, a bit wider than usual, his mouth pressed into an ominous line.

“Did you know about this?” Clarke asked, her voice thin.

He was silent a moment before he replied. “Not so explicitly, no. I’d heard rumors that the German submarines had been targeting ships near Ireland, but I thought that if they were still allowing civilian ships to sail, then it clearly wasn’t a serious threat.”

“It sounds like it’s serious,” Clarke retorted, clasping her hands together behind her back so he wouldn’t see them wring together.

“I’m sure we’ll be fine, Clarke,” Bellamy assured her. “It’s likely that the Germans are targeting ships that are useful for them to target. Trade ships, military ships. There’s no reason to think they’ll target this one, which is mostly carrying people with money who still think wartime is a good time as any to go on holiday.”

She looked back at him skeptically.

“We’ll be fine,” he repeated, but she noticed him lift his hat to run fingers through his hair, unconsciously mussing it.

She’d only been around him for five days now, but she’d come to recognize what that gesture meant.

He was worried, too. 

… 

Bellamy and Clarke sat near the corner of the first class saloon as someone began playing popular tunes on the piano. To celebrate nearing the end of the voyage, the Seamen’s Charities Fund had decided to put on a benefit in the saloon lounge, open to any first or second class passengers. Bellamy had only reluctantly agreed to go – he had little patience for concerts and dancing these days, and there was no one in particular on the ship that he cared to socialize with outside of mealtimes. 

As the pianist began to play another Irving Berlin tune, Bellamy noticed Clarke’s foot tapping in time to the beat, her ankles crossed delicately as she spoke to one of the more jovial matrons that had been assigned to their dinner table during the voyage. 

She’d worn a gown he hadn’t seen before to the concert; it was a close-fitting, sheer white evening gown, embroidered with golden leaves, vines, and flowers. Her hair was twisted up and bound with a matching ribbon, but the waves around her face were working hard to escape, as they always seemed to. It reminded him faintly of a modern Persephone. She really looked quite beautiful.

Of course, he’d never tell her that. 

The festivities fell almost immediately silent as everyone realized who was currently striding toward the center of the room.

Turner, the captain of the ship.

Bellamy leaned forward. What was this about?

Fleetingly, he noticed that Clarke’s foot had stopped tapping. 

“Ladies and gentleman,” Captain Turner began. “I hope you are all enjoying your evening here toward the end of our voyage. You may have noticed that I’ve had the skylights in the public rooms covered since yesterday, and that our lifeboats on A deck have been swung out. I would like to remind you all that there is no cause for alarm. However, we are sailing in wartime, and the waters near Britain are indeed more troubled than those back on the east coast in America. As we are currently entering a warzone, I have merely taken these measures as precautions.”

Faint gasps rippled through the crowd.

The captain barreled on, his hands held out to stay any protests. “There is no reason to think that, as a civilian passenger ship, we will be targeted. As I said, these are simply precautions. I merely want to do the utmost to ensure everyone’s safety. There is certainly no cause to worry yourselves at all. I am merely here to ask you all to not smoke on the upper decks tonight, as we don’t want any light to be visible to any enemy vessels. Again, there is no need to concern yourselves. Please carry on with the concert, and I wish you all a delightful evening.” The captain bowed, smiling tightly to those around him as he took his leave of the room. 

Bellamy’s skin prickled with unease. He knew by now what it looked like when a man was lying to keep the peace of a mob.

“It isn’t safe out here, is it?” A small voice came from his left. 

Bellamy turned to see Clarke gazing steadily at him, paler than usual, her gloved hands clenched tightly in her lap.

He didn’t want to lie to her, so he tried dodging the question instead.

“We have less than 48 hours left on this ship,” he assured her. “We’re taking precautions. The U-boats haven’t been sinking the passenger ships. We’ll be fine.”

“My father,” she said quietly, gazing off into space. “He died in a boating accident. He was out sailing with friends in the bay, and a sudden storm came up. The rough seas dashed their sailboat into the rocks, and all five of them drowned.”

“Clarke,” he said in a low voice, glancing around to make sure no one would call him impertinent for using her first name. “This is an ocean liner, not a sailboat. It’s much safer. We have lifeboats and life jackets. It’s sturdy, and not so easily sent to the bottom of the sea.”

“That’s what they said about the _Titanic_ , too,” she replied bitterly, biting at her bottom lip.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” he said, if only for her benefit. In truth, he wasn’t so sure.

He looked down to see that she’d removed her white satin gloves and was wringing them in her hands, twisting the fabric in haphazard circles.

The piano had started playing again, accompanied by the ship’s string quartet.

Clarke needed to take her mind off what the captain had said. Bellamy knew the danger of dwelling on what might be to come, instead of what was happening in the moment. Especially during a war. It was one of the fastest ways one could drive oneself mad.

He stood. “Dance with me,” he said suddenly, extending his hand to her. 

Her eyes swiveled up to his in surprise.

“Dance?” she questioned, her brows drawing together. “You?”

“Oh, give the captain a waltz or two,” their tablemate, Mrs. McDonough, encouraged from Clarke’s other side. “Go on, now, Miss Griffin. You young things ought to dance. While there’s still time,” she said, half-wistful, half in warning.

Something in Clarke’s face set, and she rose, abandoning her gloves on the cushioned seat behind her. 

“I suppose I don’t see why not,” she agreed, taking his hand. The soft heat of her skin against his startled him. It was customary for a young lady to keep her gloves on while dancing, but he guessed that Clarke was too preoccupied to remember that.

“I’m sure you’ve been to more dances than I have, so have mercy on me if I’m a bit rusty,” he said in admonition. “It’s been nothing but war for me since September.”

She lifted an eyebrow in his direction. “Do you really think that all I do is sit around and wear pretty dresses and go waltzing in the evenings?” She gave a sharp, short laugh. “I’ve been training as a nurse. My mother’s been working, as well. I have no one to escort me anywhere. I’m sure I haven’t been dancing for just as long as you haven’t.”

“Good to know we’re on equal footing here, then,” he replied as he rested his palm against the curve of her waist. As she brought up her arm to grasp his shoulder, they drew closer, and he noticed for the first time that she smelled like flowers. Jasmine, maybe. It was a soft, sweet smell that went to his head. 

As the makeshift musical ensemble played, they turned gently about the room, weaving between the other couples circling the cleared-out space in the middle of the lounge. At one point, Clarke glanced upward, turning her face to the heavens. Curious, Bellamy followed her gaze.

The captain was right. Dark shades had been pulled across the great, beautifully-paneled skylight that towered over the room, blocking the light from escaping the confines of the ship.

It set him ill at ease. Clarke as well, by the look on her face.

He’d brought her out here to distract her from the peril of the German U-boats, not remind her of it.

He cleared his throat, drawing her attention back down to her dancing partner. “So, you said that you don’t have any chaperones to take you dancing anymore. I take it that means you don’t have any suitors waiting for you at the other end of the war, then?”

Clarke shook her head grimly, tightening her grip on his hand as he led her around the room. 

“I confess, it’s not something that I’ve had much time to think about since the start of the war. I’ve been so busy training, and since I have no chaperone, I hardly have any chance to speak to men. Besides, I just don’t think. . .I don’t think it’s something my heart could withstand just now.”

Bellamy frowned. “What do you mean?”

Clarke gestured to the room around them. “I mean, look at the people here. You don’t see any eligible young Canadian men in the room, because they’re not around anymore. They’re off at sea, off in the trenches, off in the air. They’re at war. And there’s a fair chance they might never come back.”

Bellamy frowned, trying not to apply the same thinking to himself. He _had_ to make it back. For Octavia. He couldn’t leave her forever.

Clarke huffed out a frustrated breath of air. “I just don’t want to form an attachment and then worry myself sick for however many months and years this will stretch on – always wondering if they’re hurt, if they’re captured, if I won’t ever see them again.” She looked away. “I need to be able to do my job to the best of my ability. And I’m not sure that I can do that if I’m always fretting over the life of someone I’m in love with.”

Bellamy studied her face, turned away from his, framed by wayward spirals of hair and sobered by a troubled expression. It was an unexpectedly wise, mature perspective. He hadn’t thought that it was one he’d hear from a wealthy, inexperienced, eighteen-year-old girl from a fishing village in Nova Scotia. 

He understood what she meant.

“Well, for all of our sakes, let’s hope this _is_ just for months then, and not years,” he replied, his voice low.

As they turned about the room once more, the music shifted to a slower waltz, and a songstress from earlier reappeared by the piano, crooning the opening lines to a song that had been wildly popular a few years ago.

_“I am dreaming, dear, of you, day by day,_

_Dreaming when the skies are blue, when they're gray,”_

Clarke smiled, looking wistfully over at the piano. “My father used to sing this to my mother when she was cross with him, to try and lift her out of bad spirits.”

_“When the silv'ry moonlight gleams, still I wander on in dreams,_

_In a land of love, it seems, just with you.”_

Bellamy studied her face, watching it soften, her eyes glassing over with some pleasant, dreamy memory.

_“Let me call you sweetheart, I'm in love with you,_

_Let me hear you whisper that you love me too,”_

Her eyes swept back up to his, roaming his face, the golden shimmer of the room lighting up the soft curls around her visage like a halo. He couldn’t fathom what she was thinking, but a soft, pink heat had begun to crawl up her neck and over her cheeks. 

And for a moment, just for a moment, he was just a young man, sailing across the sea on a luxurious ship, dancing in the arms of a pretty girl, with no other worry or care to eat away at them like rust, like a disease that hardened and weakened them until they forgot what they were living for. He was just Bellamy, and she was just Clarke, and they had nothing but time. 

_“Keep the love-light glowing in your eyes so true,_

_Let me call you sweetheart, I'm in love with you.”_

Something came over Clarke suddenly, and she pulled away, glancing furtively around the room. “It’s warm in here,” she remarked, sounding slightly out of breath. “I might sit down for a while.”

He nodded at her, a bit unsure of what was happening. 

He flexed his fingers, surprised at how strangely they felt after she’d taken her hand from his. His skin tingled as if kissed by a ghost.

Clarke took back the seat she’d recently vacated next to Mrs. McDonough. Bellamy’s had been usurped by a different woman, one he hadn’t yet met, who was deep in some conversation with their tablemate. 

“Oh, Madeline, I still cannot fathom the horror that lies before me,” he heard this newcomer say, her voice atremble as her gloved hand fluttered near her neck. “Of course, I’m desperate to see my dear George again, and to bring him home, but I don’t know how I shall survive seeing him. I fear I will faint.”

Mrs. McDonough nodded in sympathy, patting the woman’s arm. “I can’t imagine getting news like that about one of my own, Flossie,” she soothed. “You’re bearing it well.”

“Just to think,” the woman – Flossie, apparently – continued. “ _Both_ of his legs, gone in an instant. In his letter he said that they were unsure he would recover at all for the first week of his stay in the field hospital. I’m so happy he’s alive, but I can’t even imagine what – what his life will be like. Confined to a chair, never to walk, never to ride his beloved horses again. The tragedy of it! I cannot bear it. I cannot,” the woman repeated, and abruptly began to weep.

Bellamy’s, Clarke’s, and Mrs. McDonough’s eyes widened in unison, but only the latter had the presence of mind to comfort the woman, offering her a handkerchief and wrapping an arm about her shoulders. 

Clarke twisted in her seat, turning her body away from the scene. Bellamy noticed that she’d gone quite pale again. 

“I think it’s time you and I turn in for the evening, don’t you?” he said quietly, bending down to offer his hand to her again. 

He tried to stamp out the disappointment in his chest when he realized she’d retrieved her gloves and covered her hands once more. 

… 

Just as Bellamy’s eyes had started to droop, the oblivion of sleep dragging him under, he was startled back into consciousness by a strange, muffled noise coming from the other side of the adjoining door.

It was coming from Clarke’s room.

Bellamy rolled over in the small, sturdy bed that was bolted against the wall, wondering if he’d just imagined it, conjuring the sound in the periphery of dreamland. 

As he closed his eyes once more, he heard it again.

It was a sob.

He hadn’t imagined it.

It was late. He was in his pajamas, and she likely was too.

It wasn’t proper. He should just leave it.

And yet, it felt as if his limbs moved of their own accord toward the door, his knuckles knocking lightly of their own volition.

“Clarke?”

He only heard another sob as an answer. He slowly pushed the door open.

The electric lamp on her parlor wall was still lit, but Clarke wasn’t sitting on the sofa or at her writing desk. 

She was curled up on the floor, her back against the wall as she huddled under a blanket, gasping into it.

She didn’t seem to be crying, exactly.

Or at least, not just crying.

Her breathing was sporadic, coming and going in short spurts, sometimes rattling in her throat. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, and her hands shook as they clutched the blanket in front of her. She rocked back and forth ever so slightly, her back thumping quietly against the wooden paneling of the wall.

She was panicking.

Bellamy quickly crossed the room, crouching down next to her, but afraid to touch her.

“Clarke, what’s wrong?”

She gasped a chest full of air down, her breath shuddering and thin. “I’m f-fine,” she managed to get out, not looking at him.

“You’re _not_ fine,” he countered, bracing a hand against the wall as he sank down to sit next to her. “What’s happened? Did someone hurt you?”

She shook her head vigorously. “Nothing’s happened,” she wheezed. “I’m just ridiculous. I can’t do this. I can’t. I can’t,” she repeated, her fingers kneading the blanket anxiously.

“Can’t do what?” Bellamy asked, nonplussed.

“All of this,” she mumbled. “I’m scared of b-being on this ship. I’m scared of the war. I’m scared of going to th-the front. I’m _scared._ ” A fresh wave of tears leaked down her cheeks. 

“Clarke,” he murmured, reaching for one of her hands. She gripped his tightly, like a vise, like an anchor.

“I’m going to tell you a secret, all right?” He stared at her until he caught her eyes, glazed and red. She nodded.

“The secret is, everyone’s scared, Clarke. To be truthful, I’ve only been at the front for a few months now, and I can’t even let myself think about going back or it’ll affect me too much. I’m scared. So many people are scared. I’ve seen grown men weep at the sound of distant shells. I’ve seen them scream for their mothers in the trenches when they don’t think they’ll make it out. Frankly, I’d be more worried if you _weren’t_ scared. Being scared is good. It keeps you wary, keeps you cautious. It keeps you alive.”

She gazed back up at him, her lower lip trembling. Her breathing still sounded sporadic, almost painful. 

“Clarke,” he said again. “I’m going to need you to take a deep breath for me, all right? Can you do that? Take a deep breath and hold it for a moment or two.”

She did as he said, her cheeks growing redder and more splotchy as the seconds passed. When she finally exhaled, her breath shook, but she wasn’t gasping like she was before.

“Y-you already told me I can’t do this,” she said finally, her shoulders slumping in resignation.

Bellamy sighed. His first impression of her had been wrong, as far as he could tell. He’d been in a stressed mood, and annoyed because he thought he’d been sent a useless medic. But it was clear now that he’d made a mistake. 

Yes, she was mostly untested, but he felt now that if anyone was going to be able to do the job, she could do it. She was capable, knowledgeable enough, but she still had compassion, and patience for others that many other medics had lost sight of in the horrors and stresses of war.

She hadn’t deserved the way he’d treated her at the start.

“I. . .listen, Clarke.” He laughed humorlessly. “I was wrong. It was an incorrect assumption, and it was wrong to tell you so. And for that, I’m sorry. I know better now. I have the utmost faith in you.”

He was tired, and he was uncharacteristically bothered by her tears. Not annoyed, but simply sad to see her so panicked and afraid. Perhaps it was the unusual feeling paired with the lateness of the hour that made him do something that he likely shouldn’t have.

He reached forward, holding her face in his hands and thumbing away the fresh tears falling from her eyes.

“You’re going to be fine,” he said softly, and her eyes stayed on his, arresting in their ocean-hued vulnerability. “Just fine.”

Her hand reached up to wrap around his wrist, and he expected her to chide him, to pull his hand away from her face, where it shouldn’t be. 

But she didn’t. 

Instead, she lowered her head to his shoulder, nestling against him with another shaky breath.

“We’re going to make it home, Clarke. Don’t worry. We will. I’ll make sure of it.”

He felt a quiet snuffle against him. “Isn’t it my job to keep you in one piece? I’ll be the one with the medic kit,” she said, her voice struggling for lightness and not quite reaching it.

“You may be the one with the medic kit, but I’m the one with the guns,” he retorted. “You’re the treatment, but I’m the prevention.”

He felt her shudder against him.

“But we’re not there yet,” he reminded her, trying to keep her mind at ease. “Right now, we’re two lucky fools, given first class suites despite our second class tickets, and sailing on one of the finest ships around. Chin up, Clarke. Things aren’t so dire yet.”

“I’m so embarrassed,” she replied, and the weight on his shoulder lifted as she sat up, scrubbing at her cheeks and under her eyes. “I’ll never convince you I’m strong enough for this if I keep panicking and weeping in front of you. Just pretend this didn’t happen, please.”

She wrapped the blanket tighter around herself, tucking her bare feet further underneath it. 

Bellamy turned to look at her face. It was still pale and splotchy, and her eyelashes were glued together with tears, but her lips were set in a defiant line.

She was shy, humiliated. He knew she wanted to be strong, to make others believe it, too. 

He understood.

“Well, then I suppose I can go right back to sleep now,” he announced, getting slowly to his feet. He gently pulled her to hers as well, noticing how she clung to the blanket, keeping it against her, likely out of modesty.

He suddenly felt a surge of pity for her.

She was still so young, and there was no room for modesty, for manners, for shyness in the trenches.

He wondered once more if having nurses sent in as medics was a good idea.

But this time, he wasn’t afraid that she couldn’t handle it – he was afraid she wouldn’t be treated as she ought to be. Soldiers could be vulgar, could be desperate–

No. He didn’t want to continue that line of thinking.

He would just be sure to watch over her.

To keep her safe.

“Good night, then, Clarke,” he said quietly, bowing his head as he shuffled back toward his room.

Her gaze still lingered on his as he slowly drew the door closed.

… 

Clarke snatched her woolen coat from the hook near the door and steeled herself as she locked her door behind her, tiptoeing down the corridor to knock on Bellamy’s door.

It was already past one, and she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him. 

She wondered if he was embarrassed about last night.

She certainly was.

She never should have let a man in her room that late at night, while she was wearing nothing but a nightshift, and weeping so hard she was unfit to be seen.

If her mother knew, she’d never let Clarke hear the end of it.

But Clarke hadn’t meant to wake him. The fear in her had been building all night. As they grew closer and closer to England, the reality of war loomed larger and larger in front of her. The ship captain announcing their entrance into a warzone, combined with that woman’s account of her son’s missing legs, had been enough to push Clarke into a panic – one she was ashamed that anyone else had heard.

She hoped that Bellamy didn’t think less of her because of it. Didn’t think that she was too weak, too faint of heart for what she had to do.

But she also hadn’t expected him to be so kind, either.

She was beginning to believe that her first impression of him had been quite wrong, indeed. Yes, he’d been intolerably rude, and she wasn’t going to excuse that. But he’d apologized, and he’d been much more civil in the last couple of days. 

Besides, she needed to get along with him. They’d be at each others’ sides for the rest of the war – or until something happened to one or both of them. 

Clarke shivered involuntarily. She didn’t want to think about that right now.

So here she was, about to knock on his door in an attempt to push past the embarrassment and continue their friendship. 

She rapped her knuckles against the wood. “Captain Blake? Would you care to go up on the boat deck for a stroll just now?”

Only a few seconds passed before his door swung open. He was dressed in his uniform, his hat in hand. 

“What do you say to a trip around the deck?” She asked, giving him a cautious smile. “I think we might just see Ireland passing by if we visit the port side.”

“Suits me,” he replied, settling his cap over the unruly waves on his head. “The zigzagging maneuver the ship has started is going to make me sick again if I don’t get some fresh air soon.”

“I’ve noticed that,” Clarke replied, sliding one arm into her coat. She was surprised to feel Bellamy lifting it up by the collar behind her, helping her into the other arm. One of the only day dresses she had left that didn’t need to be laundered and pressed was this thin, pale blue one, a dress more suited to summer than the chilly winds of May. She knew as soon as they surfaced on A deck, she’d need that coat.

“They’re doing it to make us a more unreliable target, aren’t they,” she said in a low, tense voice. The nerves about sailing in a warzone that she’d felt last night hadn’t dissipated with sleep, and she’d woken up still uneasy about it, like a bad taste in her mouth she just couldn’t get rid of. 

“Likely just another precaution, yes,” he agreed, clasping his hands behind his back as he followed her toward the flight of stairs. 

As they emerged onto the deck, a gust of wind buffeted them, so strong that it lifted Clarke’s woolen tam from her head and sent it flying overboard.

“Oh, no!” She gasped, her hand flying to the top of her head helplessly, too late. She looked over at Bellamy, who was laughing. The wind ruffled the curls just over his ears that were escaping his hat, and Clarke couldn’t help but notice how much a smile lit up his face. His freckles were thrown in sharp relief under the bright afternoon sky, and, much to her annoyance, she couldn’t help but think that he looked rather handsome. 

“It’s not funny! That was my favorite hat!” Clarke huffed, squinting over the railing. She didn’t know why she was bothering; it’s not like they’d send anyone overboard to fetch it for her.

“I’m sorry,” he chuckled, his hands on his hips. “It was just so sudden. You looked so horrified. I’m sorry,” he said again, trying and failing to iron out the smile dancing on his lips. “Here, wear mine. The wind won’t run off with this one.”

He took his hat from his head and gently adjusted it onto hers, tapping the short bill lightly. 

“There. The boys will all think you’re the best looking officer they’ve ever seen,” he laughed again.

Clarke lifted her hands to the felt hat, tugging it up a little so it didn’t obscure his face from her view. She had no doubt that she looked absurd, in her fluttery summer dress and her tailored blue coat and an army cap that was a little too big for her, but for some inexplicable reason, she liked wearing something of Bellamy’s. 

She raised her chin, saluting him with a mock-serious face. 

“Close enough,” he replied, still grinning.

“Come on,” she nudged his shoulder. “It’s a clear day, and I want to see Ireland. I’ve never seen any place outside of America before.”

The two of them meandered over to the port side of the ship, and as they did, Clarke caught sight of towering, green sloping cliffs rising up out of the sea. The verdant grass atop the rocks almost took on a sheen under the bright afternoon sky, and Clarke could see the waves crashing against the base of the cliffs.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, leaning against the railing to get a better look. “Just lovely. It reminds me of the Cabot Cliffs back home,” she smiled, thinking back on days in her childhood where she and her neighbor, Wells, would go picnic overlooking the sea in the summertime. 

She wished she could be back there, in that time where there were no worries and no war, just now.

“I think it’s the Old Head of Kinsale,” Bellamy said, shading his eyes with his hand. 

“Have you been to Ireland, then?” She asked him, a stab of jealousy pricking at her.

“Oh, no. Just sailed past it a few times, but it’s always looked wonderful from afar.”

Clarke sighed. “Oh. Well, if you’re ever in Nova Scotia, for some reason, you should visit our cliffs. They’re nearly as beautiful and much closer to home.”

Bellamy tilted his head at her. “I’d like that.”

Clarke’s stomach growled. She fished into the pocket of her coat for her pocket watch. _2:09 PM._

It was no wonder she was hungry. She hadn’t eaten yet today.

The ship shifted under them, the choppy sea causing gravity to tilt ever so slightly. 

“Not again,” Bellamy groaned, clutching a hand to his stomach. 

“Oh, no,” Clarke shook her head. “Here.” She reached for his hand, pressing her fingers against the warm skin of his wrist, hoping the pressure point trick would soothe his stomach again as it had before.

His eyes fluttered shut as he leaned listlessly against the railing. 

After a few moments passed, his wrist slid down, and she found his hand in her hand instead. It was soft, warm, squeezing lightly as his fingers twined through hers.

Her stomach swooped, fluttering in a way that made her heart beat out of rhythm.

“Bellamy, I-”

A panicked voice ripped through the air, coming from somewhere on the other side of the ship.

“Torpedoes coming on the starboard side!”

Bellamy’s eyes snapped open, but he didn’t let go of her hand. 

Clarke’s heart skipped a beat and plummeted straight into her stomach.

“What?” she gasped, whipping around, shoving her back to the railing.

“Torpedo! Starboard side!” The voice shouted again, down from the crow’s nest.

“Brace,” Bellamy growled, yanking her away from the railing and pressing her body against the saloon’s outer wall with his own, holding her there tightly with his arms propped over her head.

A deep, thunderous impact shuddered under their feet, and the sound of jets of water reached Clarke’s ears from somewhere on the other side of the ship. Gasps and shouts of alarm rose all around them, side to side, above and below. 

Clarke could feel her hands begin to shake as she grasped Bellamy’s sides.

What was happening? Was she going to die before she ever even saw France?

Was she going to drown like her father?

“Bellamy,” she whimpered, searching his face frantically with wild eyes. “Bellamy, what do we do?”

“I’m thinking,” he said, his voice ragged and out of breath. 

Under her feet, Clarke thought she could already begin to feel a list.

Bellamy’s eyes widened, and she knew he felt it, too.

“It’s going to sink,” he said, his voice thick with shock. “It’s going to sink.”

Clarke’s chest whined with panic. “No. No. It can’t. It can’t sink. There’s no one around to see it and send a rescue. No.”

“Clarke, the marconi operators can send out an SOS. We’re only ten miles or so offshore. Rescue will come. What we need to do is get on a lifeboat.” Bellamy ran his hands through his hair, stepping back, glancing wildly around him. 

“Wait. Let’s go get our things from the cabins. It won’t take long,” Clarke proposed, clenching her hands to stop the shaking.

“I – I don’t think there’s time,” Bellamy replied, agitated as he began to glance up and down the deck.

“What do you mean, Bellamy? The _Titanic_ was afloat for two hours after it hit the iceberg. It was all over the papers. We have time.” Clarke frowned at him, trying not to let the panic swallow her up.

“I don’t think the _Titanic_ started tilting this fast, Clarke,” he said in a low voice. 

Clarke began to understand.

He didn’t want to alarm the passengers around him and cause a panic.

There wasn’t enough time. 

Two officers had already appeared on their side of the deck, trying to prepare the lifeboats for launch. Passengers had begun to appear, many in various stages of putting on life vests.

Bellamy and Clarke didn’t have theirs with them. 

The ship’s tilt was more noticeable now – severe enough that Clarke nearly tripped and fell when she tried to take a step forward.

Bellamy grabbed her upper arm, steadying her.

He was staring hard at the lifeboats, his brow furrowed, his eyes flashing. 

“They won’t be able to launch the lifeboats on this side. The tilt is too severe. The angle won’t work anymore. We have to go.”

He grabbed Clarke’s hand. “We have to get to the lifeboats on the starboard side.”

She followed him, staring back at the angle the railing now stood at. 

He was right. 

It was sinking too fast. 

As they passed an open doorway into the interior of the deck, Clarke heard screams. Her head whipped around in their direction, even as Bellamy pulled her along by her hand.

“The power is gone!” Someone cried. “The lifts won’t move! Help me! I’m stuck!” Another’s voice wailed from deeper inside the deck. 

Clarke’s heart rate sparked even higher. She tugged backward on Bellamy’s hand.

“We can’t leave them, Bellamy!” She nodded toward the door. “They’re trapped! We have to help!”

Bellamy winced, as if something pained him. “Clarke, the power on the ship is gone. It’s not coming back. Nothing is going to make those lifts move. Ever again. There’s nothing that can be done.”

“Bellamy, no! There has to be some way to – to lift them out manually, or something! We _have_ to-”

Bellamy shook his head balefully. “There isn’t, Clarke,” he said, his tone low, dark. He pulled her forward. “You have to learn that you can’t save everyone. Sooner than I’d hoped you’d have to. It’s a hard lesson. But we _have to go._ ” He gave her a warning glance before he turned his back, propelling them forward to the other end of the deck.

Tears pricked in Clarke’s eyes. She couldn’t stand to think of them trapped in the lift cage, helpless, waiting to be swallowed up by the sea. She _couldn’t._

Clarke was wheezing and out of breath by the time they rounded to the starboard side. The ship was listing dangerously to one side now, sharply enough that it was getting harder to climb forward. 

Bellamy still held tight to her hand as he gripped the railing, stumbling up to one of the officers.

“Sir, this woman needs to get on a lifeboat immediately. She’s an army medic and she’s needed at the front. She _must_ be put on board one, now.”

Clarke began to shake her head. “What about _you?_ ” She blurted out. He glanced back at her fleetingly, his expression hard, and shook his head.

The officer grasped onto the railing, trying not to slip. “I’m sorry, captain,” he said, eyeing the ranking marks on Bellamy’s sleeve. “We can’t launch any more. The tilt is too pronounced. The last one we tried to send off was smashed against the side and overturned. I’m sorry,” the officer repeated, his voice thick. 

Bellamy swore, turning his back on both Clarke and the officer. His shoulders slumping, the officer held to the railing as he moved away from them. 

Frantic, Bellamy stepped up to the railing, gazing down at the water below. Clarke followed his gaze, watching a handful of lifeboats already rowing away from the rapidly sinking ship.

There was no way out. Clarke expected to find herself crying, but she wasn’t. Her hands had stopped shaking, and she felt strangely hollow. Empty. Nothing but negative space inside. 

A small, distant part of her rational side whispered that she was probably in shock. 

Clarke breathed a shallow breath.

When she’d agreed to this assignment with the army, she’d known she was agreeing to place herself in great peril. That injury or death was more than a remote possibility when it came to the work she’d be doing.

She hadn’t expected it to come so soon.

By all means, she should be panicking right now. She was terrified of drowning. But she had lost access to that part of her, somehow. It was almost as if her spirit had already left her body, and she was just passively watching it all unfold. As if she was a ghost, watching Bellamy pace, his fists clenched tightly at his sides as he tried to keep his balance. 

“We’re going to have to jump,” he said suddenly, hoarsely.

Clarke’s reality snapped back into sharp relief.

“Jump?” she repeated, her voice cracking.

“Yes. It’s the only way. Those lifeboats down there – they’re not full. They didn’t have time to fill them before they launched. We’re going to have to try and swim to one.”

“Bellamy,” she rasped. “We’re so high up. We can’t jump.”

He shook his head impatiently. “No, not from here. We can’t risk breaking bones from a jump this far. Besides, that water will be cold. The less time we have to spend in it, the better. No, we have to jump where it’s closer to the water. Further down the deck. It’s sinking lower and lower by the minute.”

Clarke felt her blood trickle into ice. “Bellamy, no. Did you not read the survivors’ accounts from the _Titanic?_ The people that had gone overboard, some of them got sucked under by the sinking ship once it was submerged. They didn’t have a chance. We can’t do that.”

“It’s our _only_ chance, Clarke,” he replied, agitated. “We have to do it now before it submerges, and swim hard, and swim fast. You can swim, right?” He asked, going pale.

“I can,” she nodded. “I used to swim in the bay all the time.”

“Good,” he exhaled. “Good.” He glanced at her, his eyes roaming up and down. “You need to take off that coat.”

“What? No. You said that water’s cold. The dress I’m wearing is barely warm enough for the weather as it is. I can’t leave my coat.”

He shook his head. “When it’s wet, it’ll weigh you down. The lighter you are, the better chance we have at swimming away.”

Frowning, she slipped her arms out of it with some difficulty, trying to keep hold of the railing that was now the only thing keeping her upright. Forlornly, she tossed it aside, knowing it didn’t matter now where she put it. Goosebumps immediately raised on her bare arms as they were exposed to the cold wind. 

“Let’s go,” he said, motioning forward. “Hold on to the railing on your other side, and don’t let go of my hand, all right?” 

She nodded wordlessly at him, trying to keep her breathing steady. Swimming would be all the worse if she went into it wheezing like a spooked horse.

They stumbled further down the ship, leaning hard against the railing, struggling with the ever-sharper angle of the ship’s tilt.

When the flooding water reached Clarke’s ankles, she gasped. It was cold enough to send someone into shock if they were in it for too long.

“It has to be here,” Bellamy shouted back at her. “Climb over the railing, all right?”

He pushed himself up and swung his legs over with ease. Once he grabbed onto the railing with his left hand, he reached out to her with his right. 

“I’ve got you,” he reassured her, his eyes holding hers. “Come here.”

Clarke shuffled closer to him, and she held her breath as he wrapped one arm around her waist, lifting her easily over the railing and setting her down inches away from him on the other side.

“Hold on to me,” he ordered, his eyes scanning the water below them. 

A horrible thought struck Clarke. “Bellamy, if the power is gone, all of the bulkheads are forced shut. Everyone down there. . .Charlie. . .Mrs. McDonough. . .they’re trapped,” she cried, her voice catching in her throat.

“You can’t save everyone,” he repeated, pained, squinting at her with a look that was laced with guilt. “We can’t.” 

The boat’s sharp downward angle was growing even more severe. Above them, panicked shrieks and shouts filled the air as people struggled to hang on, as others gave up and threw themselves overboard. 

It was the most awful cacophony of sound Clarke had ever heard in her life. 

He looked down at her, his nose almost brushing hers. “We have to go, now. We have to jump. Are you ready?”

Clarke wasn’t ready at all, but she still nodded at him. 

“On the count of three, we need to let go,” he said, his voice once again like flint. Clarke could see now, for the first time, how Bellamy had so quickly become a captain, a commanding officer.

“One, two, _three,_ ” he shouted, and they let go, and everything became a freezing, foaming blur as they plunged into the icy sea below.

The cold depths of the water seized Clarke like thousands of frozen, stabbing needles, temporarily paralyzing her. 

She couldn’t move.

She couldn’t breathe. 

She didn’t know which way was up.

Suddenly, something strong grabbed her arm, yanking her in some direction or other – one she guessed might be up. 

As her head broke the surface, she gasped for air, unable to get oxygen into her lungs fast enough. 

Her body was so cold it was as if it refused to continue working. 

“We need to swim,” Bellamy’s rough, watery voice came from her left, wheezing in her ear.

Bellamy. Swimming. Lifeboats.

She remembered now.

With herculean effort, she began treading water on her own, her eyes fixed on the small, white lifeboats in the distance. Her gaze was unwavering, except for the occasional glance to her left to make sure that Bellamy was still there.

Miraculously, the lifeboats were slowly growing closer.

“Help us!” She heard Bellamy shout hoarsely next to her. He waved his arms in the air between strokes as he swam. “We’re here!”

Clarke couldn’t tell if they were closing in on the lifeboat, or it had changed directions to meet them. She supposed it didn’t matter.

Soon, the lifeboat drew within feet of them, and an officer and a man dressed in a fine suit leaned over the side, their eyes wide as they took in the two that they were rescuing.

“Take her,” Bellamy gasped, nodding toward Clarke.

Before she understood what was happening, two pairs of arms were reaching down and grabbing her beneath her arms, tugging her up out of the water and over the side of the long wooden boat. As she clambered into the corner, she gasped, still struggling for air. While the water was freezing, the cold wind on her soaked skin wasn’t any better.

As the two men lifted Bellamy into the boat, she turned back to look for the ship.

The _Lusitania_ was no longer there.

All that was left in its place was a drowning mob of people, their wailing, crying voices filling the salty sea air. 

Clarke’s teeth chattered as she turned her head to the man sitting two benches ahead of her. “S-sir, what’s the t-time?”

He frowned at her inquisitively, his face pale and drawn, but he drew his watch from his pocket all the same. 

“It’s 2:30, miss,” he answered, his voice thin and reedy.

Clarke thought back to the time on her pocket watch that she’d checked just moments before the torpedo had hit.

The ship had gone down in less than twenty minutes.

She could not fathom it, though she’d seen it with her very eyes.

She looked up to see Bellamy crawling toward her, the thick wool of his uniform dripping with seawater. At the sight of it, she absentmindedly touched her head.

Of course Bellamy’s cap was gone. How would it have stayed on?

It was the second hat she’d lost today.

“I-I’m sorry I lost your c-cap,” she chattered as he drew close.

He frowned at her incredulously. “It doesn’t matter, I p-promise,” he replied, his own jaw shaking.

He sank down into the hull of the back corner of the lifeboat, his back tucked against the seam where its two walls met.

“You’re shaking,” he said, his eyes fixed on her trembling arms and shoulders.

“S-so are you,” she said back listlessly, the biting cold on her skin slowly fading to numbness. Distantly, somewhere in the back of her mind, she acknowledged that that was a bad sign, but she couldn’t think to care much about it now.

Her mind was with Charlie, the sweet man from the engine room with the injured hand. With motherly Mrs. McDonough, who always had a smile for everyone and a kind word no matter the conversation.

She thought of how they’d almost certainly been trapped after the electrical loss. She thought of the locked bulkheads, confining them to their watery tombs, leaving them waiting to die in the darkness.

She’d be crying again if she were still capable.

“Come down here,” Bellamy said from her side. “W-we need to keep you warm.”

Clarke glanced down slowly at herself, at her bare arms, at her soaking wet dress. It was now nearly see-through.

She couldn’t bring herself to be embarrassed.

“Come here,” he repeated, extending a shivering hand to her.

She took it, and he pulled her down into the hull, tucking her between his legs. He drew her flush against his chest, wrapping his arms around her tightly, tucking his chin over her dripping head. 

He was cold, too, but he was warmer than the icy, gusting winds above. 

“Hold on to me,” he instructed her once more, and she slowly wrapped her arms around his middle. “There you go. Good girl.”

His voice sounded thin and far away. She nestled closer into him. He was still here. She was still here. Somehow.

“Clarke, you can’t sleep, all right? I know it’s hard, but stay awake for me. Keep your eyes open. It’s important.”

She frowned. She didn’t want to stay awake. But Bellamy seemed to know what he was doing.

And she didn’t want to die. She learned in her training what happened to hypothermic people when they fell asleep.

As Bellamy asked the officer when he expected rescue boats to arrive, Clarke felt the vibrations of his voice in his chest under her ear.

“Most of the boats nearby are small, and slow. It might be two hours before they find us,” the officer said grimly. “We’re going to row and look for other survivors in the meantime.”

“We have to help them,” Clarke stuttered against Bellamy’s chest. “We have to.”

“Shh, shh,” he whispered. “We are. We will.” He lifted one of his hands to the side of her face, cradling her temple to him. The feeling soothed her, reminding her of when her mother would run her hands through her hair as a child when she was laying in bed, waiting to fall asleep.

Clarke wasn’t sure she could disentangle herself from Bellamy if she wanted to. The two of them clung together, soaked to the bone, cold, shellshocked, as they stayed tucked in their corner of the hull. She watched on, her brain in a fog, as the men in front of her pulled a few more survivors up from the water.

After a while, the wails and cries out at sea began to grow quieter, then quieter still.

The water was too cold.

Every once in a while, she felt Bellamy tap her side, or pinch her arm. She wasn’t angry with him. She knew he was just doing it to keep her awake. 

The sun was much, much lower in the sky when Clarke registered that another boat was chugging toward them. A boat with ropes thrown over the side, ready to lift them up to the deck.

They were saved.

“It’s time to go,” Bellamy murmured tiredly against her ear, his fingers tracing a circle on her waist. “It’ll be warm up there, Clarke. Are you ready?”

She nodded. 

Bellamy tightened his grip as he lifted the two of them to their feet, guiding them toward the deck of their rescue ship.

… 

By the time the fishing boat had towed them all into the docks of Queenstown, night had fallen. Bellamy’s arms around Clarke had gone numb, and they burned with pinpricks any time he tried to shake them to make sure she hadn’t fallen unconscious. Her eyes were open every time he looked down, but neither of them had said a word for hours.

There was nothing they could possibly say. 

Bellamy watched listlessly as they sailed into a small harbor, his eyes only just noticing the colorfully-painted, lamplit buildings that lined the street on the other side. 

As the sailors tied the boat to the docks, a line of what looked to be volunteers hurried forward, holding blankets, clipboards, and secondhand clothing.

It seemed they weren’t the first rescue boat to arrive.

A dock worker stepped up to the edge and began handing people up out of the boat and onto the boardwalk, ushering them toward a constable with a clipboard and pen at the ready.

“Clarke,” Bellamy bent his head, murmuring into her ear. “Clarke, it’s time to get up.”

There was no response.

He tilted his head, searching her face. Her eyes were open, but barely tracking anything. Her lips trembled slightly.

“Clarke, can you look at me?” 

As if in slow motion, her eyes rolled up to meet his.

Her pupils were massively dilated.

She was in shock.

He’d seen it before, on the battlefield.

“Clarke, we need to get up now,” he repeated. She nodded faintly, but made no motion to stand.

“Can I get some help down here?” Bellamy called to one of the sailors. “I think she’s in shock. Just help her up while I get up on the dock.”

The man nodded, reaching out to lift Clarke to her feet with his callused, weathered hands.

Bellamy stood to follow, wincing at the stiffness and the cold air against his exposed midsection, which had been sheltered against Clarke for the past several hours. 

He could still feel water in his boots.

As he stumbled onto the dock, he reached out for Clarke, taking over from the sailor, who clearly meant to be helpful, but was definitely staring a bit too long at the translucency of her damp clothing. 

As the constable with the clipboard approached them, a man in religious garb followed, draping a wool blanket over each of them.

“God has been with you both this day,” he said in a gentle, warm voice, bowing to them slightly before turning to another pair of rescued passengers.

“Names?” The constable asked, nodding to his list clipped to the board. “For the survivors’ list.”

“I’m Captain Bellamy Blake, and this is Miss Clarke Griffin,” Bellamy answered for them, nodding down at Clarke, who had begun to shiver tucked under his arm.

The constable raised his eyebrow at Clarke. Bellamy frowned. Why…?

And then he remembered that she was a young woman, traveling alone, and one who didn’t share his last name.

“She’s a nurse. Assigned to my unit. We were on our way to London for orders before heading for France,” Bellamy explained.

The constable’s eyes darkened a bit, his look shifting from suspicious to pitying.

“No peace for either of you, I’m afraid,” he said, jotting down their names. He nodded to some of the volunteers behind him. “We have some necessities that have been gathered by the town for you. A change of clothing, some soap, a comb. The blankets you have are yours to keep. Some of the hotels in town have agreed to house any rescued passengers at no charge until Sunday. If there are no rooms left, some townsfolk have agreed to open their homes as needed. Check in with Rosie, behind me. She’ll give you your things and tell you where to go.”

Bellamy coughed in the damp, cold air, steering them toward the woman the constable had directed them to.

“Och, the two of you just look ready to drop,” the tall, freckled woman said sympathetically as she reached behind her to pull supplies from a cart. “I’m sorry, mister, but we can’t replace that uniform. We just gathered what people were willing to give. It was all very last minute, you can imagine.” She handed him a clean, folded set of casual clothing, setting a bundle with a comb, soap, and a few coins on top. “The money is for your ticket over,” she clarified. “They’re arranging transport for you all to England by boat, then to London by train. Leaving on Sunday.”

The woman shifted her attention to Clarke. “Is she all right, mister?” 

Bellamy frowned, drawing the still-silent Clarke even closer. “She’s just in shock,” he explained. “We had to jump off the ship to get to a lifeboat and the water was very rough and cold.”

“Of course, of course,” the woman nodded, her eyes sad. She sized up Clarke with her gaze, then turned to hand her a bundle identical to Bellamy’s, except for with a shirtwaist and skirts. 

“Now,” she continued. “We don’t have many rooms left. I think there’s a double still at the Rob Roy Hotel, just down the road here. It’s painted black and white, and the sign is hard to miss. Will that suit you two?” The woman asked, holding out the room voucher to them.

Bellamy clenched his teeth, but nodded and took the voucher. He didn’t think now was the time to do the socially correct thing and ask if there were separate rooms available for them. It felt like a waste of limited resources.

Besides, he didn’t particularly care to let Clarke out of his sight right now. 

“Godspeed, the both of you,” she called after them as they started down the road.

The hotel was miraculously close by. It would have been only a five-minute walk in normal circumstances, but at the pace they were moving, it took ten. Bellamy turned the corner at the sign, and found himself in a neat, bright little square, the tower of a church looming over it from a few streets away. 

“We’re here,” he said quietly to Clarke, though he knew better by now than to expect a reply.

Bellamy handed the man at the desk their voucher. His face immediately fell somber, glancing between Bellamy’s weary stance and Clarke’s languid slouch.

“Here’s your key, just go right on up now. Second floor, last door on the right,” he said kindly. “Please ring if you need anything, anything at all, at any time.” He glanced at Clarke again. “There’s a doctor just down the street if she winds up needing one.”

Bellamy nodded his thanks, grateful that the man didn’t bother to enquire after any matters of propriety. If he noticed the absence of wedding rings, he’d said nothing about it.

When they reached the stairs, Bellamy all but groaned. There was no way Clarke was making it up the narrow staircase, up two flights. 

His joints ached with cold. He was exhausted. 

But not as much as she was.

“Can you hold these?” He asked, holding his bundle out to her. 

She took them wordlessly, adding it to her own pile of clothes.

“Hold on,” he told her, bending to wrap his arms under her back and knees and gently lifting her into his arms.

She made no protest, instead leaning her head against his shoulder as he slowly made his way to their room.

He set her back down as he fumbled with the key, unlocking the door. 

He was utterly grateful to see a small private bath set off from the main room.

After locking the door behind him, the first thing he did was turn on the hot water tap for the tub, watching it begin to run with a twinge of jealousy.

Clarke would be going first, of course.

She was still standing wordlessly in the middle of the room, their clothes in her hands as she stared aimlessly at the carpet.

“Can you manage the bath alone?” He asked, not meeting her eyes. If she said no, he was definitely calling for assistance, and hoping one of the hotel’s female employees was around.

To his surprise, she nodded. 

“That’s good. You first,” he nodded toward the bathroom, the sound of running water echoing off the tiles. 

After a moment’s pause, she moved toward it silently, shutting the door behind her with a dull thud.

Bellamy’s shoulders slumped. He wondered when she would speak again.

People expected catastrophes in the trenches, in the field. Clarke had known those were coming.

No one ever expected to be on a sinking ship, to have to fight for their lives as they watched countless others losing theirs.

Bellamy himself wasn’t sure if he was too shocked to process what had happened, or that his experience in war had already jaded him enough to keep him from being traumatized over the sinking.

It had helped that he’d had something to focus on – getting Clarke out, and keeping her alive. He hadn’t had time to worry about his own skin when he’d been fighting to save hers.

The sounds of those lost at sea screaming would haunt his dreams, to be sure, but so many voices he’d heard on the front lines already did so, as well. It was a rare night in the last several months that he slept soundly, peacefully.

He wasn’t sure if he ever would again.

Sighing, he tugged off his boots, shrugged out of his damp uniform coat and draped it over the corner of a table, and sank into the armchair by the window, gazing at the streetlights down below.

Bellamy felt a soft hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake.

“Bellamy.” Her voice was so quiet, he wasn’t even sure he’d heard it.

His eyes drifted open, searching for something to focus on. He found her eyes, blue, tired, the circles under them a deep purple. 

“It’s your turn.”

So she was speaking again.

Thank god.

He blinked away the sleep from his eyes. She was crouching in front of him, her hair damp and loose around her shoulders. She was wrapped from head to toe in one of the blankets they’d been given.

“No nightclothes,” she explained, her voice raspy as she caught his questioning gaze. “One dress is drying, the other I don’t want to ruin in sleep. Be a gentleman about it, please.”

Bellamy nodded, mildly offended that she thought he wouldn’t be. He looked away from her as he rose with some effort from the armchair.

“I’ll be back,” he grumbled, heading for the bath himself. 

As he shut the door, he noticed that Clarke had laid all of her wet things out over the towel racks to dry. Looking around, he marveled that she hadn’t gone straight to the bottom. So many pieces laid out, dripping, freshly hand-scrubbed: a shift, drawers, stockings, a corset, underskirts, and the thin, pale blue dress she’d been wearing when the ship had gone down. 

He shook his head. Women wore too much clothing. He didn’t know how they managed. 

He felt like he was intruding upon something private just by looking. He turned away, filling the porcelain tub up with hot water once more.

When he returned to the bedroom, clad in the pair of drawers he’d been given and wrapped head-to-toe in his own blanket, all he could see of Clarke was her face, peeking above the pile of blankets and comforters she’d covered herself with. Her golden head shone in the dim lamplight, and though she breathed the deep, even breaths of someone sleeping, wet tear tracks glistened down her cheeks in the light.

… 

When Clarke woke up, the sun outside the window was high in the sky. It made her pupils ache, and she squinted against the light. 

When her vision had finally adjusted a bit, she glanced around for Bellamy. He wasn’t in the bed across from hers.

Instead, he was seated in the armchair in the corner, wearing the secondhand trousers and shirt that was given to him, a newspaper hovering over his lap. Clarke could read the headline of the front page from where she lay.

_RMS LUSITANIA TORPEDOED BY GERMANS; OVER 1,000 PRESUMED DEAD OUT OF 1900 PASSENGERS._

Over 1,000 dead. Charlie. Mrs. McDonough. And hundreds and hundreds of others.

Clarke wanted to close her eyes once more and never open them again.

Too much death. Too many innocent people, trapped, frozen, drowned.

She’d been in shock yesterday. She’d forgotten how to function.

She probably would have died if Bellamy hadn’t been with her through all of it.

But she couldn’t behave this way anymore.

She was headed to _war_ , for christ’s sake. Thousands, perhaps millions more would die. And it was her job to stop as many of those as she could – to look after the men in her unit, and more, if necessary. She had to face the coming horrors – ones that would no doubt be much more terrible than those of a sinking ship – and face them capably, with her head firmly on her shoulders.

She couldn’t let this beat her. Couldn’t let her be kept down for the count.

She’d cried yesterday. Mourned. 

She had to lock that away inside herself and carry on.

Clarke needed people to believe that she could do this job. She needed to believe it about herself, too.

She looked over to see that Bellamy’s eyes had been resting on her intently, for who knows how long.

He’d seemed so unshakeable yesterday. She wondered how he did it.

She didn’t want to feel so vulnerable here, in front of him, as she did now. 

“You all right?” He asked, his voice low, gentle.

“What time is it?” She asked instead of answering him. His mouth twisted down as he checked his wristwatch, which miraculously was still working. 

“A little after two,” he answered. “You were tired. You needed the rest.”

Clarke moved to brush her messy, slept-on hair from her face, only to remember that she was wearing nothing but a short, horribly thin, borrowed shift under the blanket. Nothing that she could ever let him see. She tugged the blanket higher up her neck as she slowly got to her feet.

“I’m going to get dressed,” she announced, heading for the bathroom. She noticed that her arms were sore – from swimming so frantically or from holding on so tightly to Bellamy’s waist for hours, she didn’t know.

“Would you like me to order some food to be brought up?” He asked from over the newspaper. “You have to be hungry.”

“I would, thank you,” she replied, stepping over the threshold and onto the tile. 

“Clarke,” he called, his voice riddled with a tense undercurrent. “You never answered my first question.”

She turned her back on him, hiding her face. “I’m fine,” she finally answered, her voice like flint.

… 

The two of them spent the afternoon writing out messages to be telegrammed to their family members as soon as possible, reassuring them that they’d been saved and were headed to London soon.

Clarke knew that her mother read the papers every morning with her tea, and that she’d be absolutely beside herself knowing that there was a greater chance that her daughter perished than survived. She’d had the message sent from the hotel, along with Bellamy’s to his sister Octavia, before she’d even taken the time to fill her growling stomach with anything more than tea.

“Clarke,” Bellamy said, looking up from his bowl of soup across the small table from her. “I don’t know how much you remember from last night, but we have to get on a ferry tomorrow morning that’s bound for England. It’s a pretty long trip, most of the day, I think. Are you going to be all right with that?”

Clarke hadn’t remembered that. She’d been listening to what the female volunteer had said last night, but somehow, she hadn’t really heard it.

A day long out at sea. Again. So soon.

She was terrified.

But she couldn’t let him know that.

“Of course,” she answered, taking another sip of her hearty broth. “It’s the only way to get to London, and we _have_ to get to London.”

He held her gaze. It made her uncomfortable, and she looked away. “It’s all right to be afraid, you know. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me uneasy.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“Clarke.”

“I’m _not._ ”

“Clarke, I saw you yesterday. You-”

Clarke dropped her spoon. “ _Fine._ You know what? Yes, Bellamy, I am absolutely horrified at the idea of spending another day offshore. The mere thought of it makes my skin crawl. But I don’t have another choice now, do I? I’m about to be a medic on the front lines. Being afraid of death is _not an option_ for me. I have to be able to do my job, and I have to seem _more_ than capable to everyone around me, because in case you haven’t noticed, I’m already operating at a disadvantage here, on account of the fact that I wasn’t born a man!”

Clarke breathed heavily, surprised at her own outburst. She already regretted it. He didn’t deserve to be the target of her fear and frustration, but right now, there was no other target to be had. 

He held her glare, his own eyes steady, calm, unreadable.

“I know,” he said finally, quietly. “I know.”

He tugged at a lock of his hair. He hadn’t combed it this morning, and it curled completely unhindered, framing his brow and brushing the back of his collar. It gave him a boyish, unrefined look – one that Clarke bizarrely found herself preferring to the look of him as a neatly groomed and styled soldier.

She shook her head. This kind of thinking wasn’t useful now, and never would be.

“I don’t even think _I’ve_ processed what happened, Clarke, and I’ve seen worse in the past three months than what I saw yesterday. It was unexpected, it was shocking. And yes, it makes me afraid to get on another boat, too. But that’s what this is going to be from now on for us. Being afraid to do something, and knowing we have to carry on all the same. And I still believe that that’s what you’ll do, when it comes down to it. You’ve had all the opportunity to go back home, ask for a different assignment, and not once have you really considered that. You’re in this for the long haul, even though you’re scared, and I’m with you. I’ll be with you, all the way down to the end of the line.” Clarke watched him sit back, his shoulders sagging a bit, but his eyes still trained fiercely on hers.

Only now did she realize how tired he looked, too.

“Thank you, Bellamy,” she said quietly. His confession had sapped all of the fight from her. She hadn’t really wanted to fight, anyways. 

It made her feel better to know that he still believed she could do this. It made her feel better to know that he was afraid, too. But most of all, it made her feel better to hear that no matter what happened, he was with her.

“One day at a time, all right?” he sighed. “The channel in between Ireland and England should be much safer than the waters we were just in. The ferries are small, hard to target, and pretty undesirable for a U-boat to bother with. It’s only one day, and then we’ll be on land again. On a train, headed to London. We’ll be safe.”

“For now,” Clarke amended bitterly.

“For now,” he agreed.

Bellamy had convinced her to go out for a walk down the main street that evening. They’d been cooped up in the room all day, and he’d convinced her that the fresh seaside air would do her good, even if she’d grown sick of the sharp, briny scent of it.

She tucked her hand in his elbow, not used to feeling soft cotton there instead of the rough, thick wool of his uniform coat, which was still drying by his bed. 

“An ice cream for the lady, sir?” A man at a food stall on the corner called to them, brandishing his silver scoop in their direction. 

“Thank you, sir, but we were on the _Lusitania._ We only have enough money to get us across the channel to England tomorrow,” Bellamy politely declined.

The man’s eyes widened. “Och, no charge for survivors, young laddie. She can have one on me, by god. What a nightmare, to be sure.”

The man disappeared behind his wheeled cart, only the top of his hat visible as he scooped something into a cone. 

“Here you are, lassie,” he said at last, holding a generous helping of ice cream out at Clarke. “A sweet honey swirl for a sweet lovely girl.”

Clarke smiled at his trite, but well-meaning little rhyme. “Thank you, sir, I’ll remember your kindness,” she said genuinely, nodding at the grinning, whiskered old man. 

He bowed at them as they walked further down the street.

Clarke licked at the already-dripping cone. It was light, sweet, the taste of vanilla and honey coating her mouth. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had an ice cream. It was likely her father who’d last bought one for her. 

“I almost feel bad,” she spoke up, taking another lick. “I would have paid the man if I could have.”

Bellamy smirked, shaking his head. “My sister Octavia would have finagled him out of two. She always does know how to get her way.”

“And you don’t?” She asked, raising an eyebrow as she went in for another taste. 

He turned his head to look down at her. “No, I wouldn’t say that I do.”

Clarke looked away and out over the harbor, wondering what made him say so.

Suddenly, she felt a hand gripping her wrist, and Bellamy’s head appeared out of nowhere as he took a great bite out of her ice cream.

“Thank you,” he mumbled around a mouthful, shooting her a sly look.

“ _Captain Blake,_ ” she said in astonishment, clutching at her cone protectively. “The _nerve,_ ” she grumbled, dropping her hand from his elbow. “You know, you could have just asked. I’ve never been one not to share.”

“So, do you call me captain now when you’re cross with me?” He said in amusement.

“Or when it’s more proper to do so,” she retorted, licking at her cone petulantly.

“So how will I know the difference?” He asked, still grinning.

“I suppose you’ll just have to guess.”

As they approached the town hall building, Clarke noticed a small commotion. A handful of men were making trips back and forth between the quay and the building’s front door, carrying something long and bulky in pairs. 

At first, Clarke couldn’t tell what it was.

Bellamy stopped in his tracks. “Clarke, it’s getting late. The ferry leaves early tomorrow. Let’s head back, all right?”

Clarke didn’t answer him. What was putting him off? She drew closer, squinting in the dying light of the dusk around them.

Then she understood.

They were plain, unmarked coffins.

Dozens of them.

Bile rose in her throat as the ice cream cone slipped out of her hand and onto the sidewalk. 

“Oh my god,” she said in a strangled voice. Tears sprang to the corners of her eyes as she whirled away, turning her back on the bodies of those who’d been left floating in the water.

“Clarke, let’s go,” he urged, nudging her along. She nodded blindly, walking back in the direction that led to the hotel. 

At some point, Bellamy reached down, grasping for her hand and drawing it back up to his arm. 

She appreciated that he didn’t look at her while she cried.

… 

Clarke folded up her now-dry belongings and tucked them into the worn, small suitcase that the hotel owner had kindly given them, taking care to leave room for Bellamy’s things as well. She wasn’t looking forward to putting on the dress she’d been wearing during the sinking again tomorrow, but she was out of options.

As she heard the bathwater begin to run behind the closed bathroom door, she tucked the blankets over her, shimmying down into bed.

They’d been forced into such close proximity in the last few days. Sharing a suitcase, sharing a bedroom – it was all unthinkable in normal circumstances. It seemed that disaster left no room for decorum, and she imagined that the breakdown in social rules would increase even further when she reached the trenches. 

She hadn’t even thought about the other men that she’d encounter. The other men in Bellamy’s unit, the commanding officers, the doctors she’d inevitably work under in some of the field hospitals. 

The men at the other end of the guns shooting at them.

At first, she’d thought that Bellamy had been uncivil, unkind, and generally intolerable. Of course, she’d been wrong. So wrong, in fact, that she was now worried all of the other men she was sure to encounter _wouldn’t_ be like Bellamy Blake.

She trusted him with her life. It wasn’t even faith on her part – he’d literally saved her life. Many times in one day, even. He’d been strong when she couldn’t, understanding when she’d feared he wouldn’t be, and unfailingly respectful (except for when ice cream was involved, it seemed). 

In all of this, being partnered with him was the only thing right now that felt like _good_ luck instead of bad. 

She prayed that on the battlefield, she wouldn’t fail him. Wouldn’t fail others. Wouldn’t fail herself.

The bathroom door opened, the air shimmering with steam as Bellamy stepped out wearing his dried blue undershirt and thick long johns that were part of his uniform. His hair was shiny, wet, and sticking up all over his head. 

Clarke was reminded of his hat that he’d placed on her head, just before it had been lost.

“Bellamy, do you think the war office will help us to replace our things?” She asked, remembering that her two sets of her nursing uniform were lost at sea, probably now at the bottom of the ocean.

“They’ll have to, if they want us to do our jobs,” he answered, standing at the foot of her bed with his hands on his hips. “You certainly can’t be sent in the trenches with only those shoes,” he said lightly, nodding toward her strappy white heeled shoes that she’d been wearing yesterday. 

“No, I suppose not,” she agreed, curling on her side to face him. Her thoughts began to circle back to her earlier worries. “Bellamy, what are the men in your unit like?” She asked, trying to keep any strain out of her voice. She didn’t want him to think she was scared, or worse, a snob.

He surprised her by sinking down on the edge of her bed, only a foot or two from her head. 

“Well, the thing is, I don’t know. I was promoted to captain right before I was sent home for a furlough, so my assignment will be over an entirely new group of men when I get back. Your guess is as good as mine.”

She frowned. “Whoever they are, they probably won’t be thrilled to have a woman in their ranks,” she muttered.

He winced. “That may be true, at first. But eventually they’ll just be grateful there’s someone there that has their back, that’ll patch them up when they’re wounded. And I won’t let them show you any disrespect, Clarke. That won’t happen as long as I’m in command.”

She gazed up at him. His reassurances, his strong, solid body next to her, the warmth in his voice all worked in tandem to put her at ease, to make her believe him, to make her crave his presence even as he sat right next to her.

It was a dangerous feeling. This was war, and Bellamy was a soldier. Anything could happen to either of them, at any time. The last few days had more than proved that, and she hadn’t even set a foot in France yet.

She couldn’t let herself grow comfortable. She couldn’t let her guard down, not even for him. _Especially_ not for him. 

And so she kept her hand under the blanket instead of reaching out to cover his, where it was splayed on the comforter, inches from her waist.

“We should sleep,” she said instead. “Long day ahead tomorrow. And the day after that, and the one after that.” And she _was_ tired. She yearned for the quiet bliss of sleep before she had to get up and face another day at sea. 

“I can’t argue there,” he conceded, and reached up to turn the bedside lamp out. His weight disappeared from her mattress, and she closed her eyes, willing sleep to take her.

Her heart stuttered when she felt the tips of his fingers, ghostly light, along her hairline, gently tucking a wayward strand behind her ear. 

“Good night, Clarke,” he whispered, climbing into his own bed.

It took ages for the goosebumps on her skin to disappear. 

… 

Bellamy carried the one lone suitcase they shared the next morning as they boarded the ferry. Clarke grabbed fistfuls of the pale blue dress that fell at her sides as she walked up the gangplank, trying to hide how she trembled. 

As they found their assigned compartment, Bellamy shoved the suitcase into the overhead storage and immediately called for some tea and scones. They hadn’t had time to eat before they left, much to the sorrow of the friendly man at the hotel’s front desk. 

“You need to eat something,” Bellamy encouraged, nodding toward Clarke’s untouched plate and half-empty teacup. “It’s going to be a long trip.”

Clarke shook her head in distaste. “I just don’t feel like eating,” she replied, pushing the plate away from her. “You, on the other hand, you should slow down, unless you want to turn green again here in the next hour. This is still a boat.”

Bellamy frowned, conceding.

“Actually,” Clarke spoke up again, “Can we go up on the deck? Being down here in the cabin. . .it just makes me feel uneasy. The open air, I think it’ll help. I think it’ll make me feel better.”

Clarke knew that the ferry wasn’t going to sink. It seemed cosmically impossible for her to be on two doomed voyages in a row.

But she’d still feel safer up on the deck, where no doors or lifts or bulkheads could trap her inside. Where she could stand right next to a lifeboat, and where she could see everything coming. 

Standing out on the deck is what had saved their lives two days ago.

“I think it would help me, too,” Bellamy agreed grimly, tossing his napkin on the table in front of him.

He stood, opening the compartment door for her. “Shall we?”

Clarke inhaled a deep chestful of salty air as they reached the highest deck. The morning wind was icy as the ferry pulled out of the harbor and into the channel, and Clarke shivered, a victim of her too-summery day dress once more.

She’d be happy once she was in a nurse uniform again.

Without a word, Bellamy shrugged out of his uniform overcoat and slipped her arms into it.

It was already warm from being flush with his body, and Clarke felt comforted, as if it were some kind of blanket, draped over her with the power to keep her safe from harm.

She nodded up at him quietly in thanks.

As the two of them watched the shoreline grow smaller and smaller, she took a deep, unsteady breath.

She felt his hand slip silently, gently into hers, his fingers twining between hers and grasping them with a comforting, sure grip.

She didn’t pull away. 

* * *


	2. Of Trenches and Terrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You shot a man, Clarke. Didn’t think twice about it.”  
> “I know,” she replied, still not looking at him. “And I’d do it again, no questions asked.”  
> “You saved my life,” Bellamy said quietly. A statement. A reverent thanks.   
> “As you have saved mine,” she reminded him, her voice catching in her throat. “Many times.”
> 
> ///
> 
> Clarke and Bellamy finally descend into the trenches. Peril follows, as it always does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a little bit more violence in this chapter because they've actually reached the war, so I just wanted to warn you ahead of time if you're sensitive to that! I tried not to dwell too much on it, as I don't like writing nasty descriptions very much, so hopefully it still works for you.

* * *

_In which our heroes arrive in France, fatal shots are fired, and a melancholy Christmas arrives._

* * *

**_May, 1915_ **

Clarke sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Bellamy on the floor of the rattling, dusty supply train, the muscles in her back already sore from shaking and jostling up against the ridged metal wall.

Tucked away in her suitcase were her papers, orders detailing her assignment and giving her clearance into the trenches.

Bellamy’s identical set was nestled deep in one of his pockets. 

When they’d finally reached the war office in London, weary and in dire need of a warm meal and a hot bath, absolutely no time was wasted in doling out their assignment.

“The two of you will join the rest of your unit as soon as possible. You will take a train to the coast, a boat across the channel, and then you will be loaded on a supply train to get you as close to the trenches as we can get you. We’re planning a move forward any day now, in the north of France. Near a village called Festubert. We’re trying to gain ground against the Germans there. We fully expect it to be untidy, if it is to be a success,” the commanding officer added with a skeptical glance toward Clarke. 

“When does our train leave, sir?” Bellamy asked the commanding officer. 

“Tonight,” he replied brusquely, scribbling something on their assignment papers. 

Bellamy’s jaw tightened. “As we lost all of our belongings on the ship, sir, might we have some replacements, and some time to recuperate from the journey here?” 

The officer didn’t look up as he replied. “That has all been taken care of. We have new packs for each of you – two sets of uniforms, one set of civilian clothing, some necessities, identification and some pocket change. Obviously some exceptions were made, given your exceptional circumstances. You will have a few hours to purchase some dinner prior to boarding your train.”

And so they’d wolfed down some hot pies at a pub, rented a room for an hour to bathe and change, and headed for the train station, bleary-eyed and anxious. 

The late train they’d taken to Dover was slow, and nearly empty. They’d gotten an entire train car to themselves.

“You should sleep now, for a while,” Bellamy had told her, nodding to the space on the bench that was wide enough for her to lie across. “I doubt you’ll be able to sleep on the boat ferrying us to France.”

That was true enough. It was sure to be small, subject to the tossing and pitching of the waves, and, once again, an open target out at sea. She _knew_ she wouldn’t sleep on it. 

She wasn’t sure _when_ they’d get to sleep again, actually.

“What about you?” She’d asked, noticing the tired downward tilt of his mouth.

“I’m all right,” he answered, and they both pretended that they believed those words.

Clarke looked dubiously down at the flat, thin cushion of the bench. Noticing her gaze, Bellamy shrugged out of his overcoat and rolled it up a few times, tucking it at the corner near the window. A makeshift pillow. 

Initially, she’d tried to sleep with her back turned to him. It felt like it would give her a modicum of privacy, but something about having her nose to the back of the seat unsettled her.

Instead, she turned over, watching him lean his head back against the wall, watching his eyes fall shut against the low, golden lamplight.

It was then that she finally felt safe enough to doze. 

The ferry taking them across the channel _was_ a smaller boat, its lights covered and its hull painted in dazzle camouflage. 

Clarke sat up, alert, anxiously clutching the sides of her seat as they crossed. Her mindless inner panic was only broken when Bellamy became too seasick to conceal it any longer, and she’d used the pressure point trick on him a few times. He couldn’t keep his eyes on the horizon; the sky and sea were too dark, melting into each other in one great cold navy fog all around them. 

Morning had only just broken by the time they’d been loaded unceremoniously onto the supply train, their bags clutched close to them as they rattled against the cold, hard floor of one of the train cars. 

For the first time, Clarke was traveling in her nursing uniform instead of civilian clothing. It was usually against the rules for a nurse to travel long distance in her uniform, but an exception was being made for Clarke, as there wasn’t exactly a good place for her to change into it once she’d reached the trenches. 

She found that she hated the high collar of it in more rustic conditions such as this, and she wasn’t sure how long she would bother to keep wearing it. What did it matter, anyways? She’d be on the front lines. A lone nurse in the unit, serving as a medic. There was no reason to fuss over collars anymore.

She took down her white kerchief that was worn over her hair and re-tied it more securely, just to give herself something to do. 

The train jolted, beginning to squeal to a stop. Clarke was tossed haphazardly across Bellamy’s lap. He said nothing, but deftly grabbed her by the waist, helping her right herself.

“Are you ready?” He asked quietly, his gaze unreadable as he searched her face.

“I have to be,” Clarke answered, accepting his hand as he brought them both to their feet. 

He gave her a grim look in return, and they stepped down from the train car. 

A uniformed, somewhat dirty soldier stepped toward them in the gray, dreary light of the mid-morning. Clarke noticed a lack of mobility on the left side of his face, and a deep, purple gash above his eye that seemed to be half-way done healing. 

“Captain Blake, I presume?” He said in a businesslike, but not unkind voice, extending his hand to shake Bellamy’s. 

“Yes. And this is my unit’s new medic, Nurse Griffin,” Bellamy added, nodding down at Clarke. 

The man smiled politely at her, shaking her hand as well. Clarke exhaled. Part of her was expecting to be snubbed or laughed at because of who she was.

That’s what Bellamy had done when he’d first met her, and she knew now that there were much worse men than Bellamy out there. 

“Brave little missy, you are,” he said, giving her a respectful nod. “Well,” he continued, clapping his hands together. “I’ve been told I’m to take the two of you to meet your new unit. The Canadian divisions are in the second wave of trenches, so you’ll not be quite on the front lines yet. You’re near the Highland division. They can be a bit boisterous, and rough around the edges, but try not to mind them too much. They’re good fighters, and they usually mean well enough.”

Clarke tried not to frown. She’d never been solely in the company of men, in a man’s realm of the world, as war had always been, and every reminder of her impending circumstances made her palms grow slick with sweat.

She couldn’t crack. She had to do her job, and do it well. She couldn’t let herself look weak in front of these men. She was certain that if she did, it would bring her endless grief.

She didn’t need them to like her – no, not at all. It might even be better if they didn’t.

But she did need them to respect her. To trust her. 

The soldier interrupted her reverie by shuffling them toward a small wagon. Bellamy climbed in first, then helped Clarke as the man handed her up to him.

“We’ll be driving just near the treeline, as a precaution,” the man said, spurring on the team of mules pulling the wagon. “It’s safer than just wheeling out and about in the open. I’ll drop you two off as close to the Canadian trenches as I can pull you.”

The ride was rough. Clarke could already feel bruises blooming near her tailbone by the time they disembarked.

“Well, this is where I leave you,” the man announced, leaping down from the driver’s seat. “I wish the two of you the very best of luck. May your aim be true, and may your enemy’s aim go astray.”

He nodded at them and went on his way, waving once before turning back.

Clarke found herself standing above a maze of carved-out earth, deep enough to stand in without being seen, and wide enough for two men to walk together, side by side. Further down, as the trenches deepened, she could make out what looked like caves dug into the sides of the pathway – likely makeshift quarters for officers. Some portions of the trenches were more sophisticated than others, and had been fortified with wooden boards or sandbags for walls. 

“Stay next to me,” Bellamy said suddenly, his voice tighter than usual. 

He held out his hand to her, and they stepped into the trenches. 

Immediately, heads began to turn. 

“Who’s the bird, captain?”

“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

“Why don’t you give me some sugar, sweetheart?”

Clarke felt color rise in her cheeks, but she ignored them. She’d never considered herself particularly beautiful, but she knew that for most of these men, she was likely the first woman they’d seen up close in weeks. 

She wasn’t there to look pretty for them. She had a job to do.

She refused to let herself react, no matter how small and ridiculous the soldiers’ remarks made her feel. 

She was not an object. She was here to stitch them back together when the war tried to rip them apart.

After a few moments, the jeers began to die down. What…?

She looked to her side, to Bellamy. The expression on his face, radiating a ferocious energy, was one she would never want to cross. 

In that moment she was infinitely grateful to have him at her side.

After traveling a hundred yards or so, they reached one of the carved-out officer’s caves, and Bellamy motioned for her to duck in.

Inside was a small table covered in maps, surrounded by some mismatched chairs. In the corner was a pallet piled with blankets, a lantern resting a few feet from the head of the bed. In the opposite corner was a small, crackling camp stove, a pot of tea hanging over it.

And officers, filling those mismatched chairs, looking at the two of them with curiosity. 

“Captain,” one of them rose, “good to have you back. Lord knows we’ll be needing you in the coming days.”

“Colonel Tremblay,” Bellamy saluted. “Good to see you. I’ve returned with a medic for my new unit.” Bellamy nodded toward Clarke. “Could you tell me where they are, and what we’ll be expected to do in this approaching attack?”

The colonel nodded. “At ease, Blake. And welcome, miss…?”

“Griffin,” Clarke interjected. Was she supposed to salute as well? She wasn’t military. Surely not. She settled on a deep nod instead.

“Miss Griffin,” he repeated. “I speak on behalf of all of us here when I say that we’re grateful that you’ve come. I daresay your skills will be very needed.”

Clarke blanched. How bad were they expecting this battle to be?

The colonel turned back to Bellamy. “Your unit should be settled about fifty yards east of here, captain. They’ve all been wondering about their new captain and the new lady medic that managed to survive the wreck of the _Lusitania._ ”

“We were very lucky, sir,” Bellamy muttered, clearly a bit uncomfortable with his new notoriety. 

“That, you were. And let us hope your luck continues!” The colonel smiled wanly. “Your unit will be part of the second wave, if the first fails. The first wave is expected to begin in two or three days’ time, along with the shelling, in hopes of advancing the front line in our favor. You still have some time to prepare. More instructions will of course follow when we know more. When you reach your unit, you will find a room carved out that has been kept for you. I can’t promise it will be comfortable, but at least it’s a room.”

Clarke frowned. Where was she supposed to keep quarters? She knew for a fact there wouldn’t be any “ladies’ sections” of these trenches. Or any trenches, for that matter.

Bellamy’s mind was apparently at the same place as her own. “Excuse me, colonel, but where will we be housing our medic here? Sleeping out in the trenches amongst all of these privates surely isn’t acceptable, even down here.”

The colonel’s faint smile slipped. “Oh, dear. I don’t think we thought of that. The idea of a female medic is so novel, you know, I don’t think it’s been fully planned out yet in here. Hm.”

Clarke swallowed thickly. They hadn’t planned out somewhere to put her? She thought back to all of the catcalls and insinuations that had been thrown at her the second she’d descended into the trenches.

She felt a bit ill.

Bellamy cleared his throat. Why did he sound nervous?

“If I may propose it, Miss Griffin is welcome to share my quarters. Surely it won’t be difficult to have a second pallet brought in, and I can help with supervision when it comes to any kind of medical procedures.”

Clarke’s eyebrows climbed skyward. She ripped her gaze from Bellamy’s profile to find that the colonel’s had, as well. 

“Captain Blake, while it would be prudent to maximize the use of space, I’m not sure how proper such an arrangement would be.” The colonel’s eyes flickered back and forth between the two of them.

Bellamy shifted from one foot to another. “To be frank, colonel, there are a lot of lonely men in these trenches. As a ranking officer, I feel that it’s important that I keep an eye on the situation, as Miss Griffin’s position here is new and somewhat vulnerable.”

The colonel’s mouth twisted downward, causing his mustache to twitch. “I see what you mean, captain. And who am I to say what is proper in wartime? What is proper and what is best are not always the same thing, I have discovered.”

Bellamy finally turned to look at Clarke, meeting her eyes. For one of the first times since meeting him, Clarke thought she detected shyness in their warm, brown-black depths.

“It’s all right with me, so long as Miss Griffin has no objections,” the colonel added, and Clarke pulled her eyes away from Bellamy, feeling a bit cowardly all of a sudden.

“I have no objections to that arrangement,” Clarke agreed, avoiding Bellamy’s eyes as she nodded.

Of course, she’d slept in the same quarters as Bellamy before. In the hotel in Queenstown, in the ship cabin crossing to England. In the train compartment just last night.

But this, somehow, felt different. It felt so _exposed_ , with so many men around to see it. To see them blatantly disappear into the same cramped, dark quarters together each night. 

Even so, she found herself balking internally at any other option.

She didn’t necessarily feel the _need_ to have Bellamy around to defend her all the time, but he’d become a reassuring presence in her life – the only constant she had left in it now, actually – and having him near sounded better to her right now than having him off somewhere far from her, while she tried to live and sleep around hordes of men she did not yet know.

“Excellent, that’s sorted, then,” the colonel replied. “We’ll have a second bed and such sent over immediately. It’s still the calm before the storm, you know,” he said, his tone dire as he pointed in a general upward direction. “I’ll have Johnny here take your bags.” The colonel snapped his fingers, and a young boy in uniform who hardly looked past school-age jumped off the wall, changing his stance to one of attention. “Until then, why don’t the two of you go and meet your unit? Johnny will point them out to you if you just follow him.”

Bellamy and Clarke trailed behind the boy, stepping over soldiers slumped down against the wall and dodging the protruding barrels of rifles slung over men’s shoulders. 

After a minute or two, Johnny halted, clapping his hands together as he nervously called for a group of men to stand at attention.

“Captain Blake’s unit! Your captain and your new medic have arrived. Please introduce yourselves,” he said in a cracking voice before dodging past them, Bellamy and Clarke’s bags in both hands.

The two of them paused, and Clarke glanced around, taking in the group of men that she’d be attached to. They and the captain were her primary concern, of course, but she’d been told that her services would extend out into the division if the existing medics – men, of course – needed her help. She wondered how quickly she’d be called up by them, or if they would be too proud to ask for the help of a woman. At least, at first. Before things grew too desperate not to ask. Still, her own unit was made up of a hundred men, and that seemed like a lot to handle on its own.

“I take it you all are under the 10th battalion, then? Company B?” Bellamy asked, looking around, a stern expression taking over his face. His voice took on an authoritative ring that Clarke wasn’t sure she’d yet heard. “I’m your new captain, Captain Blake. It may be our job to win this war, but it’s my job to get as many of you back home to your families as I possibly can. So let’s stay sharp, and look out for each other, all right?”

A general murmur of assent followed as more men stopped what they were doing to look up and listen to what Bellamy was saying. Bellamy nodded, shifting his boots in the dirt. He turned to gesture to Clarke, taking her off guard.

“Now, this here is Nurse Griffin. The army is so big, it’s running out of medics, so she’s here to take the place of your last one. She’s every bit as capable as any medic you’ve seen, and I’ll tolerate absolutely nothing less than the utmost respect for her, all right, men? She very well could end up being the last thing standing between you and bleeding out on the battlefield. She’s valuable to us all, and you’ll treat her as such.”

Clarke did her best to hold her gaze as their eyes turned to her, appraising her. A hundred men, relying on her to keep them alive if wounded. 

It was a lot to take in, but she refused to falter now.

Bellamy clapped his hands. “Well, soldiers, it’ll take me awhile to get to know all of you, but I’ll be doing my best. I’ve received orders that we’ll be part of the second wave, if the first fails. The first plans to make their move in a few days, so we still have a little time to get acquainted. Why don’t you introduce yourselves to Miss Griffin and me here?”

The first to come forward was a slim, dark-haired boy, with a kind smile and what Clarke felt was a nature perhaps too soft for trench warfare. 

“Monty Green, nice to meet you,” he said, tipping his hat as he glanced back and forth between the two of them. 

Another stepped forward, taller, more gangly, and clapped Monty on the shoulder as he stepped past them. “Jasper Jordan, at your service.”

Clarke tried not to let her brows knit together in any outward sign of fretting. They all looked so _young._

“John Murphy,” a sullen boy with sharp features murmured, bowing with what Clarke thought might be a bit of sarcasm.

“Nathan Miller,” another with close-cropped hair and a serious expression said.

They continued to come forward, introducing themselves, mostly addressing Bellamy and Clarke with deference. A few winked at Clarke or gave her a sly grin, but nothing more. She was relieved.

The last one finally strode forward, a cocksure smile on his face, his hair desperately in need of a trim. “Finn Collins,” he said, reaching out to shake Bellamy’s hand. 

When he took Clarke’s he kissed it. She narrowed her eyes at him, annoyed, but not in the mood to make a scene over it. 

Yes, he was handsome, in a rakish kind of way. But not as handsome as…

Clarke shook her head. Now was not the time or place for any of that, anyway.

Bellamy checked his watch. “I think we’ve missed the noon meal, but I’ll find us something. Afternoons are usually for rest and sleeping. We do all of the work in here at night, in shifts. It’s safer that way. Should we go find our quarters?”

Clarke nodded, following him as they shouldered past their new unit. Bellamy paused only to tell one of his men to bring to sets of rations to his quarters.

Shortly, they arrived, finding a fairly deep dugout right next to a signpost: Ark Lane. 

“Why’s it called ‘Ark Lane’?” Clarke turned to ask Murphy, who was a few feet behind her.

“Because it tends to flood down on the other end,” he answered with a rueful grin, filing his nails with a pocket knife. 

“Good job it floods at that end and not this one, then,” she replied, ducking into the dugout. She felt eyes on her back as she followed Bellamy into the dark, cave-like room. 

The dugout was far more sophisticated than she’d expected. She estimated that it was about four yards by four, with packed dirt floors and walls reinforced with sandbags. A small table and two chairs, as well as a lantern, was pushed against the back wall, and a second cot had already been brought in for her – one pushed to the far left of the room, and one to the far right. Their bags had already been deposited inside.

On her walk through the trenches, Clarke hadn’t noticed anywhere to bathe. 

She tried not to wonder when she’d next have the opportunity to do so – especially given that she needed privacy that the scores and scores of men here, being all men, thus far did not. 

There was no mirror in the room, no screen behind which she could dress each day. 

She was starting to think that modesty wasn’t something she’d be able to adhere to in a place like this.

It was probably better that there was no mirror. The worse she looked, the more likely she would be left alone – probably. 

Across from her, Bellamy sank down onto his cot. “You should rest,” he murmured, his eyes holding hers tentatively, fleetingly. “It’s been a long journey getting here.”

“I’ve slept more than you have,” she observed, smoothing the white apron that lay over her skirts as she took a seat at the rickety table between them. 

A private ducked in, carrying something with both hands. “Good afternoon, captain, miss,” he greeted, depositing his small bounty onto the table in front of Clarke. “It was a good dinner today, tinned pork and beans,” he remarked almost cheerfully. “You’ve both missed the daily rum ration, but there’s always plenty for everyone each morning, so I’ve noticed. Though I’m sure no one expects a lady to be taking a rum ration, miss,” he added as an afterthought, nodding at both of them before disappearing back out into the trench corridor. 

Clarke raised an eyebrow. Rum ration? Why would that be something they’d even bother to bring in on the supply trains, if not just for sterilizing wounds?

Shaking her head, she unsnapped her bag and rifled around for her canteen, still half-filled with water, and her meal kit, which the war office had given to them before their departure. Popping it open, she tugged out the small metal spoon and returned to her tin of pork and beans.

When she looked up, Bellamy was already tucking into it. 

“They like to call it pork and beans,” he said around a mouthful, “but in all my months with the army, I don’t think I’ve ever once seen any pork in them.”

“I don’t see any evidence to the contrary of that claim,” Clarke replied, wolfing her own tin-full down. She hadn’t realized how starved she was until the first mediocre spoonful hit her tongue.

They were silent for a moment before Bellamy spoke again.

“I, uh – I hope you don’t mind this arrangement,” he said a little hesitantly, his voice rough around the edges. “I know it’s not ideal, but I feel like it’s the best we can do right now.”

“It’s fine,” Clarke answered, and found that she meant it. 

It could do her good, to have someone around that she knew, that she knew wouldn’t do anything untoward. 

He nodded, and she saw some tension leave his shoulders. “I know we probably won’t see each other much anyways, given that you’ll be making rounds and I’ll be off following whatever orders I’m given.”

Clarke scraped the corners of her tin for the last few weakly-sauced beans. “What should I do with this?” she asked, holding up the empty tin.

“Oh, they go down in the scrap metal pile, around the corner from the colonel’s dugout. I’ll take them.”

Clarke shook her head. “No, I’ll go. It’s fine. I need to get used to walking around the trenches on my own.” She paused, noticing the dubious expression that had appeared on his face. She sighed. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anyone bully me. I didn’t let you when you first met me, and you’re ranked much higher than most of the men outside this door.”

Chastised, Bellamy nodded, wordlessly handing his own empty tin up to her as she walked past.

Clarke headed back the way they’d come, tins in hand. She found after a few moments that arranging her face into a hard expression and refusing to make eye contact was the best tactic for passing by all of the leering soldiers that flanked the trench walls.

She was so focused on her mission that she almost didn’t notice that she’d walked straight into Colonel Tremblay. 

“Oh, beg pardon, sir,” she bowed her head, stepping aside. “I was just taking these off to the scrap metal pile.”

“Miss Griffin, was it?” He said kindly, rubbing a thumb over his mustache. “It’s just down here. I’ll go with you.”

Clarke would rather have gone alone, but she said nothing, continuing along at his side. 

“You and Captain Blake have had a most harrowing journey in getting here,” he remarked, pointing her around a corner. “I trust that some kind of friendship has been forged in such fires? It won’t do for a captain and a medic to be at odds in the coming days.”

“We are friends,” Clarke answered. It struck her that it was the first time she’d ever called him a friend out loud, which felt odd to her. She felt as if they’d almost gone straight from mere acquaintances to. . .something she couldn’t name, something that felt much stronger than an ordinary bond of friendship. “It’s hard not to be with someone who almost drowned alongside you after leaping from a sinking ship.” Spotting the scrap pile, she tossed the tins onto it unceremoniously. “Though, I doubt we will see much of each other, will we not? I’ll be making rounds, and he’ll be in officer meetings more often than not, I’d imagine.”

The colonel raised his brows. “Actually, Captain Blake has never been one to stay behind with the officers. He prefers to keep his boots on the ground alongside his men, though as a captain, he is not always required to do so. We could always use him more at strategy planning, but he’s never once agreed to stay behind. Not if his men are being sent out. Stubborn and bull-headed he may be, but one certainly can’t say that he doesn’t care about his unit.”

Clarke was silent as they turned back around. She’d never given much thought to what kind of officer Bellamy might be. Curmudgeonly, she’d assumed was a given, considering his behavior when she’d first met him on the ship. Maybe a little reckless, too.

Nothing the colonel had said proved any of those wrong. But hearing that she was serving under a captain that risked his neck right alongside those of the lowliest privates – it didn’t warm her heart, exactly. No, that wasn’t the right phrase for it. But something inside her shifted, bolstered her faith in him. It felt good to know that she was serving under someone honorable enough to humble himself alongside his men in battle.

Clarke was so lost in thought that she hadn’t noticed one of the soldiers from Bellamy’s unit – Finn – staring at her as she walked back to the dugout. 

…

Clarke was ripped from a dead sleep by someone gently shaking her shoulder. 

“Clarke. Clarke, wake up. We need you.”

It was Bellamy’s voice. Clarke pried her eyes open, squinting blearily into the lamplight. From what she could tell, it was pitch dark outside, and the edges of her corset were digging into her skin uncomfortably under her uniform. She hadn’t even remembered falling asleep.

“What’s wrong?” she slurred, sitting up and nearly smacking her forehead against Bellamy’s. 

He leaned back, rubbing at his jaw anxiously. 

“One of our men went out scouting, and he got hit by a stray bullet.”

Clarke was suddenly much more awake. “Oh, no. Where was he hit? Is there an exit wound?” She stumbled up off her cot, grabbing for her medic kit.

Bellamy sniffed. “It’s not deep. I think it just went through the flesh on his side. He just needs stitching up, is all.”

She exhaled, her shoulders slumping. “Well, if that’s all, then. Thank goodness.”

“Sorry if I scared you,” he murmured. “I know you were tired, but you’re the one for the job here.”

“I’m fine,” she mumbled, heading toward the trench outside. “Did you sleep?”

“I’ll sleep when my shift’s over in a few hours,” he answered, swallowing down a yawn.

As Clarke followed Bellamy out, she nearly tripped over the soldier she was looking for.

“Down here,” he called, faint amusement in his voice as he smiled up at her. 

Clarke crouched down beside him with her kit, noticing the dark stain on the ripped edges of his uniform shirt. 

“Hello, Jasper,” she sighed, tugging at the ripped fabric to get a look at the wound. “Did you notice a lot of bleeding when this happened? Does it hurt much?”

He cocked his dark, tousled head down in her direction. “Doesn’t hurt much, just pinches when I move a lot. I don’t think it bled much, but I can’t say that I was paying close attention to it while I was running back here.”

Clarke nodded. “Fair enough. It doesn’t look that deep. Just a few stitches should fix you right up.”

Clarke rifled through her kit and pulled out an iodine swab, a needle, and some surgical thread. 

“Bellamy,” she asked, not really thinking much of it, “do you know how to thread a needle?”

He raised his eyebrows at her, crouching down on Jasper’s opposite side. 

“Who am I kidding, why would you know that?” Clarke rolled her eyes.

“I do, actually. My mother taught me when I was younger.”

It was Clarke’s turn to raise her eyebrows. “Oh. Well, then. Good. Could you thread this while I disinfect the wound?”

She handed it to him, and he wordlessly took it, silently working as she swabbed the tear in the skin below Jasper’s rib cage.

He gasped. “Sorry,” she muttered.

Bellamy snorted. “You can’t apologize to everyone you treat, Clarke. Besides, disinfectant won’t hurt nearly as much as blood poisoning would.”

Clarke frowned, but he was right. “True enough.” She glanced back up at Jasper as she took the threaded needle from Bellamy and swabbed it with iodine as well. “This will hurt a bit, but it has to be done.”

Jasper’s hands gripped tighter on the brim of his hat. “So, Miss Griffin, how’d a lovely lady like you end up in an ugly place like this, huh? Ow!” he griped as Clarke’s needle disappeared into his skin.

“At the end of my nursing training, I was assigned to this unit to help mitigate the shortage of medics,” Clarke answered brusquely. “And so I’m here, doing what I need to do. End of story.”

“Sounds like fate’s just trying to get you killed,” Jasper quipped, wincing again at the needle. “First the sinking ship, and then sending you here? Seems like the gods really want you to get snuffed.”

“What’s your point, Jasper?” Bellamy grimaced, his voice laced with annoyance. “We don’t need a trench Nostradamus spewing morbid nonsense down here.” He shook his head. “We all make our own paths in life. I don’t think fate has much to do with it.” 

Even so, Clarke felt Bellamy’s eyes linger on her as he spoke, and as she glanced up to meet his gaze, she found that she couldn’t quite read it. 

“All done,” she declared, snipping the thread after the knot. “I’m advising you not to make any sudden movement that would cause the stitches to tear, but I know that will probably be a bit difficult given the circumstances,” she conceded, patting his shoulder as she got to her feet. 

She looked around at the men in hearing range, watching them trim barbed wire, move sandbags, and sip from their canteens.

“Does anyone else need anything while I’m here?” She called, raising her voice as much as she dared.

A few yards away, one of the boys she’d met that afternoon – the one that was desperately in need of a haircut – was staring at her intently, his eyes full of some dark sparkle that she didn’t care to suss out. She looked over at Bellamy to see him frowning at the soldier – he’d noticed it, too.

“It seems not,” Bellamy announced, stepping up to her side. She looked down to see that his boots dwarfed her own, planted there in the dust. “You should go back inside and get some more sleep.”

Clarke, who was somehow still exhausted, felt no desire to protest him there. 

As they ducked back into the dugout, Clarke was reminded once again that she was still fully dressed as her corset pinched under her bust. 

She desperately wanted to change into her nightclothes, but there wasn’t really any privacy to be had.

She flushed at the thought of what she was going to have to ask.

“Bellamy, do you mind giving me a moment? I’d really like to change out of these clothes.”

His gaze locked on hers, and it was as if it took a moment for it to hit him. “Oh, right, of course,” he nodded, looking away. “I’ve got another hour or two left before I can come in to rest anyways. I’ll stand outside of the curtain for a few minutes to make sure no one comes in before I leave, then.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, but he was already halfway out, crouching through the curtain pinned up in front of their dugout and letting it fall back closed.

Clarke undressed quickly when she was sure he was gone. She breathed deeply once her nightshift was on, letting her waist expand as far as she comfortably wanted it to.

She’d barely finished unpinning her hair before her head hit the pillow, back into an exhausted sleep.

… 

Clarke didn’t know how much later it was when she was awakened by the sound of shuffling footsteps against the packed dirt floor next to her. Through her closed eyelids, she could sense the low, yellow light of a lantern. She was too tired to open her eyes, and she wanted to give Bellamy privacy to change if he wanted, so she just left them closed, feigning sleep.

She was surprised, but still too tired to move, when she felt two hands grab the wrinkled edges of her blanket and pull them back up over her shoulders, smoothing it gently, knuckles brushing near her collarbone. 

A tiny, sleepy smile crept over her lips as she heard his footsteps recede, the light of the lantern growing dimmer behind her closed lids. 

… 

Bellamy rubbed the band inside his hat, his thumbs chafing against the wool nervously. Even though he was in his commanding officer’s dugout, which was larger, deeper than most, everyone inside could still hear the distant booms and pops of gunfire, shells, and the screams of falling men.

The first wave had gained almost no ground. It wasn’t working.

The second wave – the division that included his unit – would move at dawn in an attempt to bolster the failing, wounded, and dying men who’d gone before them.

Bellamy wondered what was worse: being the first to move into battle, completely blind as to what might happen, or to be the men following them, knowing exactly what had happened. 

He tried not to dwell on it. This wasn’t his first battle.

He dearly hoped it wouldn’t be his last. 

Colonel Tremblay’s face looked gaunt in the flickering lantern light as he and a dozen other officers gathered around the cluttered map resting on the rickety wooden table in front of them.

One of the generals stepped forward, his fingers worrying his mustache. “Is everyone clear on the strategy? On what they must do, come morning?” 

A round of solemn nods in the affirmative went around the group.

“Aye,” interjected a captain from the Highland division, adjusting his kilt at the waist.

“Then prepare your companies. Let them sleep in shifts tonight. Don’t worry about any routine repairs or other work. They’ll need as much rest as they can get, for god knows when rest will come again.”

A shiver went up Bellamy’s spine at the words. 

As the meeting broke, Bellamy snaked back through the trenches, forcing himself not to let his head hang low. 

He’d known this was coming. He’d just been away for long enough to no longer be used to the fight on the ground. It hadn’t really been the first thing on his mind as he’d tried to save himself – and Clarke – from a torpedoed ocean liner in the Atlantic.

But here it was again. He’d already been listening to it for days – they all had. 

Given the deep circles under Clarke’s eyes and her general quietness, he wasn’t sure she’d been able to sleep through the sound of distant artillery and dying screams. She was still new. 

It would take time. 

He’d given his men a talking-to about her while she’d been away getting extra stock for her medic kit. He’d reminded them – quite forcefully – that she was their medic now, and that they ought to treat her as such. That, though the situation was new and unprecedented, basic rules of decorum still applied, and that she wasn’t a tavern mistress, like some of them had sought out in the last city they’d overtaken. She wasn’t there to be solicited – she was there to piece them all back together when necessary.

So far, it seemed his talk had mostly worked. The men were all polite to her, if distant. One of them – Finn, he thought the man’s name was – wouldn’t stop making eyes at her, but as far as Bellamy knew, he hadn’t gone so far as to say anything to her. 

Bellamy frankly felt a little bad for her. 

She didn’t fit in here.

She wasn’t an officer, she wasn’t a soldier, she wasn’t a surgeon or a doctor or a chaplain. 

She wasn’t one of the men, and in that regard, she was completely and entirely alone.

He’d tried to speak with her, have meals with her, but his schedule had been demanding, what with his lookout shifts, his meetings, his strategy reviews with his company, the weapon checks, the supply checks, and so on and so forth.

She’d been very much on her own.

By the end of tomorrow, he suspected, she’ll have undergone a baptism by fire.

She wasn’t going in the field with them yet. The idea had been floated by one of the colonels in a meeting the day before, but Bellamy had declined it, saying she wasn’t ready yet.

And that was true – she probably wasn’t. 

And they couldn’t have their medic gone as soon as she got here. Then they’d all be doomed.

But also, Bellamy chafed at the idea of her dying on his watch. He felt this gnawing need to keep her safe from cannons, from bullets and grenades. He couldn’t shield her mind from the gore of other bodies and the lives of others lost – there was no way around that – but for now, he could at least try to shield her body from physical injury, if nothing else. 

Something inside him whispered, told him that she was important. In a way that transcended her medical expertise. 

He shook himself slightly, clenching his jaw. He couldn’t think about this right now. He needed to address his men, to tell them what was happening, to remind them of their own courage. 

“Company B,” he shouted, summoning them. Slowly, they gathered round, setting aside their tools and their weapons to stand and listen.

“All right, men. I know we’ve only known each other for a few days. I know that it’s been hard listening to battle these past 48 hours, wondering what’s next. Wondering if _you’re_ next. Well, I’m here to tell you: the time has come. Our entire division, alongside the Highland division, is continuing the offensive begun by the first wave tomorrow at sunrise.”

Next to him, Jasper did a quick jig, making a noise that seemed to be a poor approximation of bagpipes. 

Bellamy smacked the back of his head. “None of that, Jordan.”

Chastened, Jasper quickly stood still.

“Now, I know for some of you, this is your first time in battle. I intend to make sure it’s no one’s last. Up in the field I want you to look out for each other. Cover each other’s backs. Shoot sharp, and aim true. Shout for help when you need it, but hold your ground. You’re a fine group of men, and between me, Miss Griffin, and each other, I plan to see you all to victory at the front of the line.”

Bellamy tipped his hat. “May we see the retreating backs of the enemy by this time tomorrow.”

A chorus of cheers and raucous affirmatives echoed amongst his men, and Bellamy’s heart tightened in his chest. 

He knew what he’d said about all of them making it to victory almost certainly wouldn’t be true.

But he needed them to believe it. 

“Shout if you need anything, any of you,” he added. “And don’t worry about the routine work tonight. Everyone rest as best as they can. Take lookout duties in shifts, but otherwise, get some sleep.”

Bellamy turned away from them and stepped toward his shared dugout, only to find Clarke standing in front of the curtain, her arms crossed over her uniform, her eyes fixed on him intently.

“What?” he asked, a little self-conscious. Had she heard the whole thing?

She shook her head, smiling slightly, and held the curtain up for them both to duck inside. 

As they sat down on opposite ends of the room, Bellamy watched her untie the head covering that was part of the uniform and fold it neatly at her side, shaking her hair loose. Her blonde waves were already growing dull and messy from dust and lack of available bathtubs, but she hadn’t said a single word in complaint, bearing the dirt silently. 

He hoped that the next position the army rested at would be near a river so she could wash. So they all could.

As Bellamy munched on a piece of dried chicken, he pulled his wallet from one of his shirt pockets and retrieved the small portrait of Octavia he’d had made before he’d left for the war. It was wrinkled now, and the ink had bled a bit while Bellamy had swam for his life in the ocean, but it was still recognizable.

Her likeness smirked back at him, one corner of her mouth quirked up in a smile she couldn’t keep down. 

It would probably be Christmas before he saw her again, if he could get furlough. 

He’d miss her birthday. For the first time ever. 

“Is that your sister?” Clarke’s voice startled him as she tiptoed over, gesturing to the photo in his hands. “May I see?”

He nodded, handing off the photograph.

“She’s lovely,” Clarke murmured. “I will say, the two of you don’t look so very much alike, though.”

“Is that your way of saying I’m _not_ lovely?” Bellamy teased.

Clarke shot him a withering stare.

Bellamy swallowed his last piece of chicken. “Actually, we have different fathers. It’s probably for the best, you know? If Octavia had my freckles, I’m sure she’d cause quite a stir for being ‘too much in the sun’ or whatever it is that high society ladies say.”

Clarke handed back the photograph, her eyes roaming his face. 

“That smile looks a bit like trouble,” she noted, nodding at the portrait.

“Well, that’s likely because she is, sometimes,” Bellamy said wryly. “She certainly doesn’t like being told what to do. Ever.”

“How unfortunate, as you seem to like telling people what to do,” Clarke replied, nodding out at the trenches.

Bellamy shrugged. “I do what has to be done.”

Almost as if she didn’t realize what she was doing, Clarke sank down next to him on his cot, her shoulder brushing against his. 

“Are you afraid?” He asked her suddenly. 

It felt easier to ask the hard questions when they weren’t looking at each other any longer.

She was silent for a moment, locking and unlocking her fingers on top of her knees.

“I’m sure the more I do it, the less intimidating it will seem,” she finally answered, clasping her hands together tightly, keeping them still now. “I’ve been tested in the nursing program. I know I can remember my training when I’m under pressure. It’s just never felt quite real until now.”

“I’m not sure it’s something you ever get used to,” Bellamy mused, tucking his sister’s photograph back into the safety of his wallet. 

Next to him, Clarke’s jaw cracked as she yawned mightily, trying to hide it behind her hand. 

“You should sleep,” he said, nudging her shoulder lightly.

“I can’t, Bellamy,” she said quietly. 

“Try this,” he said, reaching into his inner pocket for a small flask and handing it over to her.

She unscrewed it and sniffed, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

“Is this your rum ration? I thought you had to drink it on the spot-”

“I pulled a string or two. Perks of being a ranking officer, I guess. Drink it, it’ll help.”

Clarke shot him a dubious look, but tilted her head back, swallowing it down in one go and smacking her lips.

“Nasty,” she gasped. “Is that really even rum? It tastes like something that came out of a puddle.”

“It might be moonshine. I don’t ask questions,” he shrugged. “Didn’t think a girl like you would have discerning taste when it came to liquor, anyway.”

Clarke narrowed her eyes. “I sneaked a few sips from my father’s liquor cabinet in my day,” she retorted. “I know what _good_ rum should taste like, at the very least.”

She handed the flask back to him. “Bellamy,” she began. There was silence for a moment, and he turned to look at her, only to find that she was already looking at him. “How did you do that earlier?” She swallowed thickly. “How did you manage to tell all those men that they’re headed for victory? Statistically, they won’t all come back by the end of the battle, and you _know_ that.”

Bellamy sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face.

He couldn’t lie to her.

Not after all that they’d been through. Their partnership, forged in flame as it was, seemed to leave no room for platitudes or falsehoods.

“You’re right, Clarke. But it’s important that they all _believe_ they’ll make it back. That way, they’ll all fight with hope. With the idea that there’s something for them waiting on the other side. In war, and I guess, in most other things, a man fighting without hope is usually just a suicide.”

She was quiet for a moment. “I think I understand,” she finally nodded, biting her lower lip, making it, Bellamy noticed, that much rosier. “It’s kind of like when someone is dying in a hospital bed, and they ask if they’re going to be fine, and you tell them yes, even though it couldn’t be further from the truth. Because letting them think that things will be all right is the only good thing you can do for them in that moment.”

Bellamy only nodded in response, wishing he had some more rum ration for himself. 

He shook his head. “Enough of this gloom for tonight. Let’s talk of something less nightmarish, no? How about Nova Scotia. Tell me more about where the princess grew up.”

At the nickname, she elbowed him. “I’m not a princess! Don’t be insufferable.”

Even so, she smiled as she told him about the bay, about the bracing, salty air, about the fields she’d run around in as a child and about fishing in a canoe with her father. Her cheeks flushed with drink, and seeing her smile, genuinely, for the first time in days made Bellamy feel, somehow, that he’d accomplished something good. That in here, in this cramped, spartan little dugout, the two of them had created a bubble, a soft, glowing world that was just the two of them, laughing over the past and oblivious to the coming dawn. 

Her voice grew slower, more muted, as the rum trickled deeper into her veins. She leaned on his shoulder as she laughed, and didn’t lift her head again. The weight against him grew heavier, and he looked down to see her eyes fallen shut, her breathing even against his arm.

She only protested weakly as he wrapped his arms under her and carried her to bed, grumbling something unintelligible against his shirt. 

After Clarke was tucked in, sleeping soundly under the scratchy wool of the army blankets, Bellamy sat on his bed, fully clothed, to wait for the sun to rise. 

… 

“You! Get over here, now!” Clarke screamed over the sound of nearby artillery, gesturing to two soldiers scrambling past. She didn’t recognize them. They weren’t from her unit, but that didn’t matter right now. 

She saw them take in her uniform and come stumbling over, ducking at the sound of bullets nearby, even though they were below the level of the trench top. 

“Help me hold him down while I tie this tourniquet!” She said hoarsely, gesturing to the man’s leg, which was gushing a steady flow of dark blood over his torn pants leg. “There,” she ordered, pointing to the wounded man’s waist and shins. “Keep him down.”

Clarke ripped a sheet of clean cloth with her teeth and began to wind it tightly around the man’s upper thigh, trying to ignore the strangled cry that he made as she tied it off. 

“He needs to be taken back to triage, _now._ You need to carry him.”

The two soldiers she’d stopped looked at her, nonplussed.

“Go! It’ll keep you off the front lines for a while, isn’t that what you’d like?” She groaned in frustration. “Take him now, or he’ll lose that leg. Tell the surgeon there isn’t an exit wound. I can’t help him any more right here in the dirt. _Go!_ ”

Clarke didn’t wait for them to leave before she ran down the trench corridor in the direction of a howling man she’d heard a few moments before. As she got closer, she saw that he was half-hanging over the lip of the trench, his arm dangling sickeningly as blood dripped from a stump where his hand had once been.

“Help me, help me, please!” He called in a strangled voice, his accent thick, unmistakably Scottish. 

“We need to get you down,” she muttered, thinking. “Can you slide your body sideways, so that you’re standing on the lower ledge? Can you stand?”

“I think so,” he whimpered, and began hoisting himself to the left. As his body began sliding rapidly down the side of the trench, she caught him under his shoulder, struggling under his weight.

“Sit,” she said hurriedly, digging for more iodine. She poured it hastily over the wound, trying not to use more than she had to. “I’m going to wrap this up, but that won’t help for long. Do you know where the triage tent is? Out of the trenches in that clearing in the forest?”

He nodded hastily, adjusting his kilt with the hand that he had left. 

“Good. You’ll need to go there. They can do more for you. I’m just patching you up long enough for you to get to a hospital bed, all right? This is going to hurt,” she warned before tightly wrapping the stump of his arm in cloth. 

He groaned, and she could see his jaw working against the urge to cry out again. She quickly tied it off and smacked his good arm, ushering him on his way.

As she watched his retreating back, she slumped down against the dirt wall, her chest heaving under her bloodied uniform smock.

It had been like this since shortly after sunrise. Right now, Clarke couldn’t make out the sky well due to the clouds and the smoke and the ash, but she was willing to bet that the sun would be setting any minute now. 

She was exhausted. She wanted to scream. To cry. To throw up, maybe. She wasn’t sure if her hands were shaking from shock or simple dehydration.

She hadn’t seen Bellamy since he’d left this morning. Some of the men in her unit had come in, wounded, some worse than others. 

Some would be back out in the field tomorrow.

Others wouldn’t make it through the night.

She’d found that, by being told to stay behind in the trench alleys, she’d ended up treating way more than the men whose unit she’d belonged to. She’d tended to other men in the division, the Scotsmen, and even a few Englishmen and Bengal infantrymen, who she hadn’t even known had divisions nearby. 

Her shoes, her clothes were caked in blood and dirt. 

She suspected that her face was, too. 

Clarke wondered briefly if the men in her unit weren’t coming back because they were laying dead up there, trampled upon and out of sight. 

She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. She couldn’t dwell on that right now. 

_“Help!_ ” she heard a new voice shout somewhere to her left.

Turning on her heel and clinging to her kit, Clarke began to run.

… 

Several hours after darkness had descended upon them, so did a pouring, torrential rain.

With the rain came a blessed, temporary ceasefire, but with the ceasefire came the scores of men.

Many of them were wounded. Clarke was called to the hospital tents in the clearing to help there as activity dwindled on the front lines. 

But it felt that, as there were wounded, there were just as many dead. She hadn’t realized it until she’d stepped up out of the trenches at the edge of the forest, but from there, despite the darkness and the rain, she could see the bodies strewn in the mud. Some whole, as if resting. Many more were broken. 

As she worked her way through the night, she came across nearly a dozen men from her and Bellamy’s unit. A few only had minor injuries, and likely would stay to recuperate, but most of them were more severe.

They’d be shipped back home, some to heal, but some to remain permanently altered by their injuries. 

And soon, Clarke thought bitterly, they’d be replaced with a fresh, green round of privates, young men who’d eagerly signed up to serve their country – likely as cannon fodder. 

At one point, she’d run into Monty, the soft-spoken boy with black hair that had first introduced himself when she’d arrived in the trenches.

He was sitting up on the edge of a bed, his overcoat lying on the grass below. There was a fair amount of dried blood on his arm, but Clarke had discovered that he’d just been grazed, the bullet merely nicking some flesh and muscle. He’d be sore, but fine enough to stay here.

“How has the rest of our unit fared?” She asked quietly as she tied a sterile bandage around his arm. 

He looked at her for a moment, as if he was deciding to sugar-coat his words for a lady, or tell a medic the unaltered truth.

“Not well, Miss Griffin,” he finally admitted, his voice low and scratchy, no doubt from shouting over artillery fire all day. “I can’t say how many are dead, but it’s more than just a few. And not just in our unit. In all of them.”

Clarke swallowed thickly. What would they do with all the bodies? Would they wait for the rain to stop before they buried them? Would they do nothing, choosing instead to move forward and leave them to the flies? Her stomach churned.

“And what of Captain Blake?” She asked, her spine tingling in fear of the answer.

“I haven’t seen him in a few hours now,” Monty said grimly, reaching for his overcoat and shrugging back into it to ward off the chill of the stormy night. “But the last time I saw him, he was indeed still amongst the living.”

“That’s good,” Clarke replied rotely. Monty’s answer didn’t really mean much. There was plenty of time in a few hours out there for one to be killed. 

“Well, Monty, you have no idea how much I’d love to just sit here and chat, but I have to keep making rounds. Men are still being brought in. Get yourself some hot tea, all right? I heard that they’re handing it out back near the convalescent beds. Oh, and Monty? Please just call me Clarke. Formalities feel quite out of place here, I’ve found.”

Monty nodded, giving her the tiniest of smiles as she stood to go.

Clarke headed for a neighboring tent, swallowing down a mouthful of water from her flask as she went. If she wasn’t careful, she’d pass out, and she daren’t take up a bed right now when someone certainly needed it far more than her.

The rain pounded on, and the men being brought in steadily grew muddier and muddier. In turn, so did Clarke. Bending over them, holding them down, cutting away their clothes sent the mud all over her as well. The head covering that was part of her uniform had long disappeared, being put to use as a much-needed tourniquet on some man’s arm instead. The smell of death, the sight of smeared blood and grassy mud all over her uniform was enough to kill her appetite any time it dared to try and make a reappearance. 

Though the rain continued to pour, the black sky gradually began to lighten, and Clarke was all but dead on her feet as she moved from bed to bed in triage, stitching and bandaging and occasionally assisting in amputations. 

She desperately wanted to sleep, but the sounds of men screaming echoed in her ears, in her head. She was sure they would become a chorus in her dreams as well. 

A man appeared on a stretcher. Clarke recognized his face under the mud and ash. He was from her unit. Bertie, wasn’t that his name? He’d been kind to her a few days ago, giving her a small piece of licorice that his sweetheart had sent to him by mail.

As her eyes moved down to his torso, she realized that the bloodied loops laying over him weren’t soiled bandages.

They were his own insides, flipped out for the world to see.

Bile heaved into Clarke’s throat, burning it, causing tears to spring into her eyes.

She swallowed forcefully. Not now. She had to help him right now. 

“Clarke?”

Bellamy’s low, strained voice filtered into her body like morphine in the bloodstream.

He was here. Standing up, filthy but in one piece, in front of her, on the other side of the stretcher.

Her eyes locked on to his. Finding softness there, mirrored relief, and empathy for the horror in front of them sent the overwhelming urge to weep coursing through her. 

She bit her lip again, hard, causing it the broken flesh from last time to re-open, to bleed again.

A wet, gurgling sound pulled her attention back down to the dying man on the stretcher. He was trying to speak, but his throat was filled with his own blood.

“It’s all right, Bertie,” she told him, her own voice catching in her throat. “Just lie still. You’ll be all right.”

She wiped the hair, the dirt from his eyes, murmuring wordlessly. After a few moments, his eyes glassed over, life seeping from them and out into the ether. His soul had departed his body, to suffer no more.

Clarke’s eyes drifted back down to his mangled, exposed organs, and the bile in her throat returned. 

“Excuse me,” she mumbled, and ran for the treeline, out into the rain and into the dark gray light creeping between the trees.

She doubled over as she retched onto the mossy roots of a tree, emptying her already-empty stomach weakly, her throat burning and her eyes stinging with tears that this time she could not stop.

Suddenly, there were rough, cool hands brushing her neck, gathering her damp, tousled hair and holding it back from her face as she heaved.

“It’s all right,” Bellamy murmured, his other hand tracing her back lightly. “It’s all right.” The same words she’d told Bertie. The same lies. 

Clarke coughed one more time and tiredly straightened up, feeling tears spill over her hot, embarrassed cheeks. Slowly, she turned to face him, her arms crossed tightly over her dirt-and-blood caked chest.

“I was doing so well until that last one,” she hiccuped, wiping rain off her forehead. The downpour wasn’t so hard here, with the leafy tree canopy mitigating the sheets of water currently pelting down from the sky. “I’ve been at this since you all went up this morning, you know. Well, yesterday morning now.”

“I’d have been surprised if you hadn’t,” he said, his voice thin, hoarse, sounding as bone-weary as she felt. 

“How many?” She asked, wiping her mouth gracelessly on the back of her dirty sleeve. Her face was already filthy, so what did it matter?

Bellamy knew immediately what she was asking. 

“18 dead in our company,” he answered grimly, his voice cracking. “I lost track of the number of injured, but I didn’t come in until I’d accounted for every one of ours that died in the field. We’re holding the line, but the losses. . .they’ve been heavy.”

“About a dozen of ours wounded, that I saw,” Clarke replied. “Most of them bad enough to be sent home. Monty will stay, but not the others.”

Clarke looked down at her hands. They were nearly black with blood and dirt. Trembling, she held them out, asking the rain to wash them clean.

“Poor Bertie,” she said in a shaking voice, trying to push the last image of him from her brain. She didn’t have the energy to dry-heave again.

“18 dead,” Bellamy repeated in a faltering voice, his eyes sinking to his mud-caked boots.

“82 _alive_ ,” Clarke retorted, grasping for a silver lining. “That’s most of them, Bellamy. You kept them alive.”

“So did you,” he said quietly, meeting her eyes once again. They locked on each other for a moment before his gaze fell, tumbling down her body. “I almost didn’t recognize you in that tent back there, you know. Underneath all that.”

“Do you know what’s terrible?” She asked, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth again. “An hour or two ago – at least I think it was an hour or two – I felt so dirty that I briefly thought, only for a moment, how nice it would be to be jumping off the bow of the _Lusitania_ again. How easily the waves of the seawater would wash this filth away. It’s absolutely mad, isn’t it?”

He didn’t reply, only shook his head tiredly. “If we manage to push the line up in the next few days, we’ll have access to a canal. Have a chance to bathe. _If_ we win this,” he repeated. “But right now, we need to go. The losses are bad enough that the divisions in the second wave are now moving up to the front of the line. We’re putting a hold on the attack for the next day to rebuild some of the trenches at the front of the line – this rain’s so bad that it’s destroying the corridors. We need to get our things and move up.”

Clarke’s shoulders slumped. She was hoping that the ceasefire would give them all time to sleep, to take shifts for much needed rest. She didn’t know how much longer she could push through. She’d been on her feet, running helter-skelter with nothing to eat and nowhere to sit for almost 24 hours now. 

“We can get some sleep when we move up to our new trench assignment,” he assured her, reading her mind. “Come on. Drink a little more water on the way, all right? It’ll help.”

He reached up to touch her shoulder comfortingly, for the briefest of moments, before nodding toward the treeline, ushering her back into the trenches. 

She noticed that he walked on her right side, slightly ahead of her, putting his body in between her and the distant front line. 

She wished suddenly, the memory springing unbidden into her mind, that she was in his lap again, held against his chest like she had been in the lifeboat, his arms wrapped around her for so long that she eventually lost track of where she ended and he began. Right now, it felt like it would be the safest, loveliest place to be.

But she said nothing, her face cool and stalwart. This wasn’t the time, or the place. That seemed to be turning into her new mantra for all things concerning Bellamy Blake. 

Gritting her teeth, she walked on, wearily putting one foot in front of the other as the rain grew fierce once more. 

… 

Almost a week passed before the battle came to an end. Bellamy’s commanding officers – and, presumably, all the papers back home – deemed it a victory, but it certainly didn’t feel like one. Not when they’d exchanged the lives of almost 17,000 men for a mere three kilometers of ground.

Bellamy’s unit was one of the lucky ones, though he felt like anything but. 60 of his men had emerged unscathed; He’d ended up with 20 dead and 20 wounded, four of which had sustained injuries minor enough to keep them on the ground and out of hospitals. 

Bellamy knew it could have been worse. One of the neighboring Highland companies had been almost totally wiped out. 

He’d hardly known these men, but they’d still been _his_ men. He’d done everything he could to fight both for victory and for their lives.

But it still didn’t feel like he’d done enough.

His heart was heavy as he walked alongside the remaining members of Company B. They’d been sent up to the newly gained ground on the other side of the village – Festubert – to take their places in the abandoned line of German trenches. Scouts had already been sent ahead to check for snipers and booby traps, and the coast had been called clear, but all of them still proceeded with caution. 

The sounds of artillery still echoed in their ears, even though fire had ceased yesterday.

Bellamy frowned as they filed into the village. 

It was almost complete rubble. Destruction left no building untouched, and almost any remaining signs of life had been burned away. Three walls of a small church were only barely still standing. Houses, shops – or at least, what Bellamy imagined had been houses and shops – had been completely leveled. Something that looked vaguely like an inn was still standing, but only just. 

Bellamy tried not to think about what had become of the civilians who’d lived here only weeks ago.

He hoped they’d all had time to run.

“Looks like there’s nothing to see here, men. Move out. Stop at the canal to wash yourselves before you settle into the new trenches, hey? God knows we all stink.”

“I think everything stinks so much that nothing stinks anymore,” Murphy grumbled, favoring his lacerated left leg as he trudged forward.

“Half of us are dead, we all look like pigs, and the other half of us will probably be dead by Christmas. I don’t even know why we’re really here, damn it,” Finn swore. 

“Hey,” Bellamy spoke up to their retreating backs. “Scouts say the German trenches are nicer than ours. Get yourselves cleaned up, and you can sleep. No shifts necessary, all right?”

At the promise of sleep, their mood lifted ever so slightly. 

“Nurse Griffin,” Finn called over to Clarke, who’d been walking near the edge of the group, her eyes fixed on the landscape around them. “You coming to wash in the canal with us? I’ll wash your back if you wash mine, isn’t that how the saying goes?”

Monty smacked Finn’s shoulder as he walked past him. “Be a gentleman, Finn,” he said with disgust. “And it’s ‘scratch’ your back, not wash.”

Clarke said nothing in reply, only squinting back at Finn with a dour expression on her smudged, dirty face. 

The company marched tiredly on, but Bellamy hung back. Clarke, noticing, trudged over to his side.

“What’s the hold-up, captain?” She asked tiredly, pulling back a straggly piece of hair from her face. Her uniform head coverings hadn’t made an appearance since the second day of battle – he assumed they’d been put to more practical use than hiding a woman’s hair in the middle of a war. 

“Just giving the men a break for a bit,” he replied. “I’ve found that people can usually relax a bit more when their commanding officers aren’t looming over their shoulders.”

“I don’t think they think of you in that way,” Clarke said quietly, her eyes on the horizon.

“I know in what way some of them think of _you_ ,” he retorted darkly, sniffing in annoyance.

“Oh, don’t start. They’re mostly all right, until they’re not. It seems like Finn has so much hair that it’s preventing him from getting it through his thick skull that I’m not interested. We’re in the middle of a battle campaign, for christ’s sake. Even if I was, this is certainly not the place for courting.”

“So you’re not succumbing to the irresistible charms of Collins?” Bellamy asked. 

“Certainly not. Having a handsome face doesn’t mean every girl must swoon at your feet,” she bemoaned.

Bellamy felt a strange twinge of relief at her answer that he chose to completely disregard. 

“Anyway, another reason is that I promised you a bath in the canal, didn’t I? Last week. Took longer to get here than I hoped. Once they’re done and sleeping in the trenches, I’ll keep guard while you wash up. It’s only fair. You’re practically a mudcake at this point.”

“You’re one to talk,” she grumbled, but still scrubbed at her filthy face all the same.

Bellamy knew she must feel disgusting. He did himself. In the past week, he’d only made it back to the trenches to rest a few times where he’d crossed paths with her, but every time, he’d found her passed out on the floor, too tired and too dirty to bother crawling into bed.

He was certain that under the dirt on her face, he’d find dark circles under her weary eyes. 

He’d been proud of how she’d managed the battle. Impressed, even. He hadn’t expected her to give up, but he wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. All those nights cleaning gory wounds, stitching up flesh, amputating skin and bone, with almost no time for food, water, or rest in between – it was enough to break any spirit. 

He’d seen her empty her stomach more than once – less and less as the days had worn on. He’d seen tracks of her tears paving muddy paths over her dirty cheeks. He’d known she’d felt heavy under the weight of it all.

But she’d never wavered, never given up. 

She was stronger than anyone had given her credit for. Even him.

Once, a few days prior to the end of the battle, she’d even asked for a helmet so she could go up into the field, to treat more soldiers on the ground.

Bellamy had refused. There was no way he was going to let her up there, an easy target, shot before she could even get to the first wounded man to treat him. Absolutely not. She could do the most good in the trenches and in the triage tent in the clearing, where she’d been going back and forth from. 

That, and he didn’t want to have to get a new medic. One that wasn’t Clarke. 

They’d been through a lot together already. He wasn’t confident he could part with her so easily. 

She sighed next to him. “Walk around with me?” she asked. “I want to see if that inn over there has anything in it that could be useful for supplies. Sheets, wood for splints, things of that sort.”

“Let’s go,” he nodded, letting her lead the way. 

The search proved mostly futile. Clarke found one set of clean bedsheets in an armoire that had miraculously escaped from damage, but the rest of the rooms were either half blown-out or already looted. She wrapped the sheets up and tucked them under her arm.

The two of them stepped carefully back down the splintered wooden stairs, but as they reached the bottom, Clarke turned abruptly to face him, her nose nearly colliding with his chest. 

“You’ll think I’m silly, but. . .can we sit down for a while? It’ll give the unit time to wash up and, as awful as this rubble is, it’s still nice to be somewhere that isn’t a muddy trench.”

Bellamy’s lips twisted down as he considered. The officers wouldn’t be convening to discuss strategy again until morning, and work on the trenches never started until after nightfall.

There was currently a ceasefire as both armies paused to catch their breath.

“Of course. Why not,” he shrugged, holding out an arm and gesturing to the empty room.

“Thank you,” she murmured, her shoulders slumping in what seemed like exhausted relief. She shuffled over to a corner of the walls that hadn’t taken much damage and slid down, leaning back against the plastered wall and splaying her legs out in front of her like a ragdoll. 

Wordlessly, Bellamy followed suit, knocking his knee against hers. He felt her temple lean against his shoulder, heavy with weariness.

He hadn’t realized how absolutely exhausted he was until he felt the support of the floor and the wall beneath him. 

“You know, I didn’t–” he began, then stopped short once he looked down at Clarke. Her eyes were already shut, her mouth slightly ajar as she breathed evenly. 

He understood. 

With his free arm, he reached up to take off his cap, placing it carefully beside him. He felt his eyes droop, and he leaned his head down, his cheek gently coming to rest on top of her tousled head.

He let the soft darkness wash over him like a flood.

… 

By the time they’d woken up, startled that they’d slept so long, the sun was close to the horizon. Disoriented, and still tired, they got to their feet, heading for the canal. 

“You should go first,” Bellamy told Clarke. “This section over here is partially obscured by a bridge. Try back there, and I’ll make sure no one comes near, all right?”

Clarke certainly wasn’t going to argue. The last time she’d really washed properly was in London, and since then, she’d gotten filthier than she’d ever collectively been in her life. She was no longer sure what was ash, what was blood, and what was dirt. She had dirt in crevices she previously had never imagined it could reach.

“Is it clear?” she called, hanging back behind the shadow of the low bridge.

“Clear,” Bellamy called back, facing away from her as he stood lookout, his shoulders set, his hands clasped behind his back. 

Clarke made quick work of undressing herself, cursing the amount of layers women’s clothing required, and jumped eagerly into the canal, her soiled uniform left abandoned on the banks.

The water was cold, bracing. Not as cold as the Atlantic, but still enough to take one’s breath away. 

She let herself linger under the surface for a moment, relishing the silence, the weightlessness of it, before swimming up for air. 

She’d never realized what a luxury being clean was.

She scrubbed at her hair, at her skin, until it was pink, smooth, and all traces of dirt and blood were gone.

Visibly, at least. 

She swore she could still feel the blood on her hands. 

Satisfied with her body, she reached for her uniform and scrubbed that as clean as she could, too.

She found that the bloodstains on it wouldn’t quite wash away.

She needed to get out. It was only fair that Bellamy had a turn too, and the light was quickly fading from the sky. 

“Coast still clear?” she called up to his stalwart back.

“It is,” he returned, shifting his weight. 

They’d brought their belongings with them when they’d left for the new trenches. Hovering neck deep in the water, she reached for her bag, popping it open and tugging out her back-up, second set of uniform clothing, sans the head cover. Those were all lost, gone to wounded arms in desperate need of slings and tourniquets. 

Being naked out in the open like this was something she’d never done before. _Clearly_. No lady would ever do so, especially not a society girl.

But that wasn’t who she was anymore, and she didn’t have a choice.

She quickly hoisted herself out of the water and tugged on her clothing piece by piece. It seemed she’d grown thinner over the past couple of weeks, and her corset was no longer laced tight enough to fit her. She didn’t have the patience to fix it now, so she just omitted it entirely, throwing it back into the depths of her bag. 

Her wet hair hung in her face as she walked toward Bellamy. She knew she had pins somewhere down in her bag, but she just couldn’t be bothered at the moment. 

“Your turn,” she piped up, startling him. His head snapped in her direction.

“Well, there she is again,” he said, smiling faintly. “I knew you were still under there somewhere.” He tucked a stray piece of hair back behind her ear.

As the dying, golden light shone on his face, she found herself staring for a moment too long.

… 

Bellamy’s hair was still dripping with water as they arrived into the newly overtaken trenches. What they’d heard was right: the Germans did have better, more sophisticated trenches than they did. Wooden boards flanked the walls of the dirt alleys, and the dugouts were deeper, higher, and wider. Many of them were still stocked with things the Allied soldiers hadn’t seen in weeks, if not months: chess sets, iron pots and pans, mattresses, bottled beer. The atmosphere in the trenches was still subdued, but slightly in awe. More than one expression looked upon the game boards with contempt, as if wondering why anyone thought this was worth the nearly 17,000 lives that had been lost to get here.

Lanterns lit the way as Bellamy led Clarke to their new dugout assignment. They were surprised to find that the room had a wooden door at the entrance, two _real_ bedframes with two _real_ mattresses on them, and a rustic-looking makeshift screen to divide the room for privacy. 

It certainly wasn’t a proper room with things like running water or a fireplace, but it was better than what they’d had before.

Bellamy glanced over at Clarke in the lamplight, who’d sank down onto her bed with a wistful sigh. The stolen sleep they’d gotten on the cold, hard floor of the shelled-out inn earlier certainly hadn’t been enough. Bellamy felt the weariness in his bones, too. 

“You’re finished for the night, Clarke. You can sleep,” he assured her, checking his pocket watch. It was nearly time for him to go out and do rounds. 

She glanced up at him, startled, almost like she’d forgotten anyone else was in the room. As her eyes met his, her cheeks began to color.

He cocked his head. “What is it?”

“This is ridiculous, but can you help me with something? When I was getting dressed down by the canal, I tried to lace up my corset and realized that the laces are too loose now for it to fit me. It’s always a two-woman job back at home, and I can’t reach them properly on my own, and…”

Bellamy felt his own cheeks flush. He knew what women’s corsets looked like – on a woman, even – thanks to Octavia constantly asking for his help with them after their mother had passed. They didn’t bother him. 

But that had been on his _sister_ , for christ’s sake. 

Still, he knew she didn’t have anyone else to ask. The field hospital nurses were miles away, never even close to the trenches. 

Part of him was even flattered she trusted him enough to ask. 

“Uh, sure. Just tell me what to do.” His mouth twisted downward. “You really don’t have to wear one, you know? We’re in the trenches. It’s war.”

“Oh, but I do,” she said wryly. “Women’s clothing wasn’t designed to be worn without one. It’s just not the proper thing to do. It’s actually against the rules of nursing.”

Bellamy snorted. The rules clearly weren’t made with female trench medics in mind. 

“Just. . .hold on–” she grumbled, digging in her bag and tugging it out. “Here it is. I’ll snap it up the front, and if you could just pull the laces through so it’s a bit tighter now? Apparently a week of running to and fro to treat the wounded is enough to shave an inch or two off anyone’s waist.”

Bellamy stepped forward, but froze when she began unbuttoning her blue uniform dress. “ _Wait_ , what are you doing, Clarke? God almighty, I’m–”

“It won’t work if we do it _over_ my dress, you simpleton,” she chided, tossing her dress and petticoat onto her empty bed. Standing in front of him clad now in only her undergarments and stockings, she quickly turned her back to him, her modesty seeming to finally catch up with her a bit. “One moment,” she muttered as she pulled the corset around her waist, snapping all of the buttons together up the front. “All right. Just grab the laces and tug on each loop until it’s tighter. Should be the easiest thing you’ve done all week.” 

Bellamy swallowed thickly. He’d never want to be ungentlemanly toward Clarke, or any woman, but it was difficult to keep his eyes from the curve of her legs beneath the thick black stockings, or the soft relief of her shoulder blades that he hadn’t seen since the night of the _Lusitania’_ s charity concert underneath the formal gown she’d had on. 

Shaking himself internally, he started at the top of the laces and began working his way down, cinching it tighter, inch by inch.

The air between them hung thick, heavy, pregnant with some kind of heady silence. Or did it only feel that way to him?

“Am I hurting you?” He asked in a low voice, pausing, the laces twined over his fingers. 

She only shook her head in response. 

As he finished the last few loops, she reached up to lift her falling hair from her back, pulling it around to rest on one shoulder. It revealed a deep, purple-yellow bruise near the base of her neck, stretching a few inches across.

“What happened here?” He asked, resting the palm of his hand gently against it, covering it from his sight.

He felt her suck in a breath. He moved his hand immediately.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt–”

“You didn’t,” she murmured. “I just forgot it was there, I promise.” 

Almost of their own volition, he felt his fingers return to the back of her neck, tracing it with feather-lightness. 

When she spoke, it was slow, a bit disjointed. “It was nothing. Just a – just a stretcher pole that hit the back of my neck while I was crouched in front of it in the triage tent.”

His hand came to rest near her collarbone, where her neck ended and her shoulder began. He couldn’t help but rub his thumb against the soft skin there.

“Why do you trust me so much, Clarke?” He found himself asking suddenly. His insides clenched, horrified at the recklessness of his tongue. 

She stood still, but he felt her hand rise to rest over his. “You’ve never given me a reason not to,” she replied quietly. 

“I couldn’t have been worse when we first met,” he corrected her, finding himself unable to move under her touch. He didn’t want to.

“First impressions aren’t everything, I’ve found,” she said. It was quiet for a moment before she spoke again. “You’d never hurt me, Bellamy.”

She finally turned around, gazing up at him, her tired eyes heavy, but earnest. He was falling into them like one fell off a cliff.

He meant to reply “never,” but he found that his voice wasn’t working, and that he could only shake his head. 

“I know,” she nodded, and she rose up on her toes to kiss his cheek for the briefest, _tiniest_ of seconds before turning away, grabbing her nightgown, and disappearing behind the wooden screen.

Bellamy marveled at the ease in which she walked away to go about her evening; but from afar, he couldn’t feel the way her heart was pounding nearly out of her chest.

**_September, 1915_ **

“Gimme a light,” Murphy whispered to Finn, who was crouched next to him in a shallow depression in the trench wall. 

“Make it quick, quick,” Finn whispered back in a hushed, urgent voice, striking a match and waving it out as soon as Murphy’s cigarette caught.

Murphy’s eyes drifted shut under the shade of his helmet as he took a drag, cautiously exhaling the smoke back into the fold of his uniform coat to keep it from rising above the top of their trench.

The rest of Company B milled through the trench alley, staying low and quiet, silently wiping their brows in the late afternoon heat. 

They were at the front of the trench rotation, and a single wrong move or loud noise could easily get them all gassed, shot, or targeted with grenades. 

Only a few more days were left at the very front of the line. If they survived, they’d be able to cycle back, miles away, to the rest and recreation tents. After a few days there, they’d rotate into the very back of the trenches, as a reserve unit. A week would pass, and they’d cycle up to the middle trenches as a support unit. Then it would be back to the front lines again. 

Clarke and Bellamy huddled in their dugout. It was nearly sundown, and Bellamy was on his dinner break, using the downtime to scarf down some watery chipped beef and pen a letter to his sister. Clarke sat opposite him, repinning her braids to the top of her head to keep them out of her face. Once she finished, she lifted a clean corner of her apron to wipe the sweat from her forehead and upper lip.

“You know, I never thought I’d say this, but I’m actually looking forward to Halifax in December. For the first time in my life, those biting, icy winds on the coast sound quite lovely,” she muttered.

The two of them, along with a few others from the unit – Finn, Murphy, Monty, and Jasper – had managed, miraculously, to get Christmas furlough. Five whole days – excluding travel time back and forth on the Atlantic, of course – to spend the holidays with their families in their homes, thousands of miles away from the hell that they were currently stuck in.

Clarke couldn’t deny that she was a bit anxious to be sailing across the sea again, in the open water. German submarines were still sinking as many enemy ships as they could. The ships had gotten better at navigational tactics and upped their use of camouflage, but there was only so much that could be done. 

All things considered, though, she wasn’t as afraid as she would have been back in the spring. 

In the past five months, the amount of death she’d witnessed compared to the lost souls on the _Lusitania_ had multiplied tenfold, twentyfold. To drown in icy waters was a horrific thought, to be sure, but she’d seen so much worse. Men, blown in half. Blown into smithereens. Smothered by mustard gas and boiled to death in their own skin. Men, strewn bleeding across the barbed wire in no man’s land, left to die slowly because the risk to run to their aid was too great.

The sounds of their screams and whimpers haunted her dreams at night.

But only in dreams would she let the torment take hold of her. In waking hours, she was tough, practical. Rational and collected.

She had to be, or she couldn’t save as many as she did. 

She had to be, because she’d never keep the respect of the men in the trenches if she didn’t.

And she had to be, for the sake of her own mind. To keep from going mad.

“I’d give anything to be shivering from cold right now,” Bellamy agreed, folding up his letter and sealing it. “Anything you need to mail? I’m going to send this down to the communications trench.”

Clarke shook her head, tugging her boots back onto her feet. She needed to go back and do rounds soon. The fading sunlight burned a blinding orange outside of their dugout. It would be night within the hour. 

Clarke found herself wishing lately, up here at the very front of the line, that they all got rum rations at night as well as in the morning. She’d begun taking a ration each day alongside the rest of the men, and even though they’d hooted, gasped, and teased her at first, they’d gotten used to it, clapping her on the shoulder as if she was one of them.

Maybe she was now. She’d certainly stitched and bandaged enough of them up. And they’d all lived through the loss of comrades, the gas raids, and the dirty, stinking, sleepless nights together. 

Not a week went by where a member of their unit wasn’t lost, either to injury, illness, or the great beyond, and replaced with new, fresh young cannon fodder. It was hard to keep up sometimes. 

“Hurry back,” she said quietly before he reached the curtain pinned up as a makeshift door. There was a softness in his eyes when they met hers, and he nodded briefly before ducking out. 

Clarke rifled through the supplies by her bed, restocking her medic kit before she left to do her rounds. Even if there was no active combat, the trenches raised a number of issues throughout the ranks all the same. Trench foot, ague, cuts from barbed wire, dehydration – all were fairly common. She tried to keep on top of those things as best she could, and she didn’t really mind. It was a nice reprieve from assisting with amputations and stitching men’s insides back into place. 

She crouched through the makeshift curtain and into the sandbag-lined trench, walking down a few corridors until she stumbled upon the unit, clustered quietly in the dirt. 

“Anyone got anything that needs seeing to, fellas?” She murmured quietly, holding up her kit and gesturing to it. 

Murphy stubbed out his cigarette, smirking but saying nothing. He knew she hated the smell of the ash. Clarke merely rolled her eyes and moved along.

“A lonesome heart, you could fix that,” Finn whispered, grinning at her like a cheshire cat. 

Clarke shook her head. Months had passed, and Finn hadn’t dropped his casual flirtations. He’d never taken it too far, and she didn’t want to make a fuss, so she usually let it go. 

“I’m sure your mother will have some words of comfort,” she replied under her breath with a smirk of her own.

Over in the corner, Jasper stifled laughter, shoving the back of his wrist against his mouth. 

“One day. One day I’ll wear you down,” Finn replied, undeterred. 

Monty rolled his eyes. “Ah yes, wearing her down. The most romantic way to woo a lady.”

“Oh, and what do you–”

Finn was cut off as something landed their feet. Did someone drop something, or-?

Clarke’s blood froze in her veins as her brain processed what her eyes were looking at.

A makeshift hand grenade.

“ _Run!”_ Came Jasper’s strangled yelp, and then there was chaos.

The unit crushed back, scrambling down the narrow alleys of the trench, hands pushing and boots kicking as they pelted forward in a mass of flailing limbs. Clarke tried to duck as she ran, wishing desperately that she’d put on her helmet before she’d left the dugout. 

Somewhere behind her, the sound of a detonation roared up to meet them, ringing and echoing in their ears. 

“ _Germans!_ ” a voice shouted from a few yards back, and Clarke’s heart leapt into her throat. 

This was a trench raid.

They were here to slaughter them like animals, and she had no way of fighting back.

Medics weren’t issued guns. _Especially_ not female medics. 

Many of the privates around her came to a halt. 

They couldn’t escape the German soldiers hailing down into the trenches around them. What seemed like twenty men must have come running across no man’s land, jumping down to rain terror and death upon the unprepared front lines.

All around her, there was a flurry of rifles being cocked and bayonets being attached. 

What would she do? What _could_ she do?

“Clarke, get down!” 

She almost missed Bellamy’s voice as he blurred next to her, pushing her shoulders down into a small, coffin-sized dugout off the footpath. 

“Stay down!” he said, his wild eyes only briefly meeting hers before he was gone again, lost in the skirmish.

Clarke’s heart felt as if it would pound out of her chest.

She was used to constant gunfire. But she wasn’t used to it being ten yards away, and aimed at _her_.

She wanted to scream, she felt so helpless. She bit down on the back of her forearm instead.

The pain gave her something to fixate on.

Something clattered down next to her. It was one of the Germans’ helmets, with its small, sharp pointed tip digging into the dirt. 

A harebrained half-thought flickered into Clarke’s mind, and she grabbed the helmet, clutching its rim, watching the pants legs scuffle past her.

Waiting for the right shade of wool. 

She’d never forgive herself if she accidentally wounded one of her own.

And there it was, the dark, charcoal gray.

Lightning fast, without thinking, she slammed the pointed tip of the helmet into the leg, just next to where she guessed the ankle would be.

She thought she could distinguish a yelp, then a thud. Maybe she’d gotten him.

Her heart pounded double-time in her chest. 

She had no idea how long she stayed laying on her stomach in that tiny, oppressive dugout. 

It could have been seconds. It could have been minutes. An hour, even. 

Finally, she was fairly certain that the only sound left was the ringing in her ears. Carefully, she rolled into the alley, her arms braced against the ground as she quickly took in the scene. 

Carnage. Both sides. But, unbelievably, mostly Germans. Providence, it seemed, was on Canada’s side today.

And there was Bellamy, sprawled back on his elbows, blood seeping through one shoulder of his uniform. 

“Bellamy,” she gasped, shoving herself to her feet and scrambling to his side.

He was her lucky captain. He was never wounded. He couldn’t be. Not now. 

Not him.

“Are you all right?” She asked, grabbing for him, trying to get a closer look.

“I’ll be fine,” he muttered, but his face was pale.

Motion caught in the corner of her eye.

_No._

Clarke’s neck snapped around.

An injured German, clutching his side, began to drag himself toward them, his weapon drawn. Pointed at Bellamy.

There was no thinking.

Clarke ripped Bellamy’s pistol from its holster on his belt and pivoted, aiming straight at the German soldier’s chest. She squeezed the trigger.

The soldier fell face forward onto the dirt, and blood began to pool beneath him. 

Clarke couldn’t rip her eyes away.

He was dead.

She’d done that.

All by herself, without a second thought. Without even a _first_ thought.

It took her several moments before she realized that her arm was still out, gun still pointed, her hand visibly shaking.

The men in her unit stood around her, staring, wide-eyed. 

What were they thinking of her?

Shock coursed through her veins, and she lowered her arm, turning and silently handing the gun back to Bellamy. He took it wordlessly, his eyes riveted to her, searching her face.

Clarke’s skin prickled under the scrutiny. She straightened back up, looking around but not meeting anyone’s eye. She opened her mouth to speak, but her voice stuck like glue in her throat.

She cleared it and tried again. “Is anyone else wounded?” she called out. “Anyone need to be taken to the hospital tent behind the lines?”

Monty stepped forward. “Arthur. He’s been shot in the thigh. It’s bleeding pretty bad.”

Clarke gave herself a mental jolt. “Right. Monty, take Jasper for a stretcher. The two of you carry him back off the line and get him to a convoy for the hospital. Anyone else hurt badly enough that they need a surgeon?”

A strangled voice rose somewhere behind a pile of dead Germans. “Help me, nurse,” he called. “Please.”

Clarke glanced back down at Bellamy, who was still pale, but holding himself upright. “Come back to me later,” he muttered, understanding what her eyes were asking. “I’m all right.”

Clarke’s eyes flickered between his, and she nodded, hustling over to whoever had called out. 

“Jimmy. Jimmy, what’s wrong?” She kneeled next to him, combing his prone body with her eyes.

In lieu of an answer, he lifted his right hand. The center of it was shot out, a bloody, pulpy, gaping hole.

Clarke’s breath caught. A ruined hand. That was enough to get a man sent home, but not enough to ruin the rest of his life.

There were many that would call Jimmy a lucky man.

She quickly began to wrap his hand in a bandage to staunch some of the bleeding.

“Can you walk, Jimmy?” He nodded weakly. “Well, you’re losing blood, so take a man with you back to the hospital in case you pass out. Glenn, will you walk him there?”

Glenn, a tall, wiry blond boy, only a few months over eighteen, nodded frantically.

“Then go, the two of you. Anyone else?” She called, glancing around, amazed at their luck.

One of the new recruits – Geoffrey, she thought his name was – waved a hand. “I think my face needs a few stitches,” he grumbled, gesturing to his cheek, which was indeed sliced open below his eye and trickling blood. 

Clarke nodded. “Stand to the side, and I’ll get to you. Let me check on Arthur while he’s waiting for that stretcher first, all right?”

Bellamy’s voice boomed from behind her, making her jump. “Everyone else, move back toward the middle trenches,” he called out, his voice strong despite his injuries. “Soon, they’ll realize their raiders didn’t come back, and they’ll attack with more force. We need to back off of these alleys here. Go find Colonel Tremblay; he’ll tell you what to do. I’ll come find you later.”

“Yes, sir,” the men saluted haphazardly, glancing nervously toward the sky as they began to filter down a narrow alley leading away from the front lines. 

As the soldiers passed Clarke, some gazed at her, nonplussed. Others nodded. Miller reached out to clap her shoulder as he walked by. 

Some of them seemed afraid of her. But most of them seemed. . .proud.

Clarke had no idea what she felt. She’d have to sort that out later, when she could stop to think.

Not right now.

Clarke busied herself with Arthur, wrapping a tourniquet tightly around his leg and covering the exposed wound with a clean bandage. After helping Monty and Jasper load him onto a stretcher, she gestured for Geoffrey to sit down, and she quickly sterilized the gash on his face, pitying the boy as he flinched with every dive the needle took into the tender skin of his cheek. 

“No making any crazy faces for a while, all right, Geoffrey?” She advised, giving him a wan smile as she patted his arm and sent him off after the rest of the unit. 

Sighing, she pushed herself to her feet and slowly turned back to Bellamy, who’d moved into a sitting position against the trench wall and had been watching her quietly.

A beat passed as they looked at each other, both of them struggling to speak. 

“We need to go back and clear out our dugout so we can retreat inward,” Bellamy finally said, grimacing as he struggled to his feet. The shoulder of his uniform coat was a deep, crimson-black color, and he favored it as he came to stand beside her. “You can stitch me up there.”

They walked the few dozen yards in silence, and when they ducked into the now-dark dugout, the sun long gone, Bellamy lit a lantern and hung it on the loop over his bed.

Clarke’s brows drew together as she studied him, nodding for him to sit down on his blankets. “Take your coat off,” she instructed absentmindedly, digging in her kit for more iodine, a needle, and thread. 

When she realized he was struggling with lifting his right arm, she winced, angry at herself for not realizing he needed help.

“Hold on, here,” she muttered, gently tugging the remaining sleeve from his arm. “Just stay still. I’ll do the rest. It’s faster,” she emphasized when she realized he intended to protest. 

Clarke kept her eyes trained on the buttons on his overshirt, undoing them methodically. 

It was _just_ Bellamy. So why were her cheeks feeling warm?

Maybe it was because she’d just killed the man who’d dared to aim a gun at him. 

She could feel his eyes on her as she tugged off the remaining clothing on his upper body. 

She didn’t know what was wrong with her. She’d seen plenty of men _much_ more naked than this since she’d gotten here.

...But those men had often been terribly wounded and unconscious, and not following her every move with keen eyes.

And they hadn’t been _Bellamy._ The man she’d been sleeping across the room from for almost half a year now. 

Clarke tried to shrug it off as she examined the wound. A tear in the skin, from a bayonet. Not very deep, but a bit jagged, which is what had brought on all the bleeding. 

“A bayonet did this?” Clarke frowned, finally meeting his eyes. Her heart squirmed when she realized he’d already been looking.

“I think the blade was serrated, which is horrific, but unsurprising,” he answered, his face still a little pale. It made the freckles dusting his cheeks even more prominent.

“Well, lucky for us, I can fix this right up,” she announced, opening a few iodine swabs. “This will sting, sorry.”

“Don’t apologize–” he broke off, sucking in a breath sharply. Apparently he hadn’t expected it to sting _that_ much. 

“And stitching this together won’t feel that nice, either,” she warned him, threading the needle. 

She squinted. Even with the lantern overhead, the room was still quite dim. She needed to get closer if she wanted to do a proper job. 

She shifted forward, as close as she dared. Any more, and she’d be sitting on his knee. 

Her nose nearly grazed his collarbone as she leaned in, stitching the gash as deftly as she could. As she pressed her palm against the skin of his chest to pull it taut, she couldn’t help but notice how soft, how warm he felt under her touch. 

Clarke wondered fleetingly what the skin near his collarbone would feel like beneath her mouth.

She frowned. What was wrong with her? Was that a side effect of shooting a man? Going mad?

She bit down on her lip, punishing herself. She bit it so often nowadays that there seemed to be a permanent, tooth-shaped wound across her bottom lip, never getting a chance to fully heal before she opened it again. 

He remained completely still as she continued her work, and she tried to concentrate as hard as possible, to not think about his smooth golden skin or the warmth of his body or the shallow breaths that moved his chest beneath her hands.

But she wasn’t so focused that she didn’t notice his hand snake around her waist, steadying her as she leaned toward him.

It was a testament to her abilities that she did not stop or stumble in her stitching.

“There,” she announced shakily, finishing. “Be careful with this shoulder for a bit while it knits itself back together, all right?”

“Clarke,” he murmured, his voice low, gravelly. “Are you all right?”

He kept his hold on her waist, not letting her move away.

It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t have tried to anyways.

“I haven’t really taken the time to think about it,” she answered, her eyes still trained on his shoulder. 

“You shot a man, Clarke. Didn’t think twice about it.”

“I know,” she replied, still not looking at him. “And I’d do it again, no questions asked.”

“You saved my life,” he said quietly. A statement. A reverent thanks. 

“As you have saved mine,” she reminded him, her voice catching in her throat. “Many times.” She finally lifted her eyes to his, locking on to his gaze. Dark, warm, swallowing her whole. 

It all made sense.

Of course she’d killed a man for him without a second thought. 

She knew, deep down, that she _could_ do this without Bellamy.

But she really, _really_ didn’t want to. 

He was the dearest friend that she had here. Or anywhere, really.

Every day could take him from her. She certainly wouldn’t have sat by and watched it happen. Not if she could help it. 

“Are we even, then?” He asked, his voice both soft and rough at once. 

“I wasn’t keeping score,” she said in return, meaning it.

“Neither was I,” he smiled faintly. 

Clarke’s heart was pounding fiercely against her chest, demanding to be let out. Anxiously, she bit her lip, worrying that same spot, this time tasting blood. 

Bellamy winced as he lifted his other arm. “Don’t,” he pleaded, sweeping his palm over her cheek, brushing his thumb over her bottom lip. “Don’t worry yourself.”

Clarke was struck with the overwhelming urge to kiss his thumb.

Was this the path that war led people down? Kisses with bloodied mouths?

She was sure that she was losing her head. 

Her attention was diverted by the squeeze of Bellamy’s other hand on the curve of her waist.

She’d stopped wearing her corset every day. Sometimes, she just didn’t have the time or energy to lace it all up along her gradually thinning waistline. No, the shape of her clothing didn’t settle right without it, but she was usually too busy to be bothered with that.

That meant that the touch of his hand against her waist was separated by a much thinner layer of clothing than usual. 

Clarke felt herself unraveling under his hands. She needed to step away before she was totally undone. 

She resented the cooling night air, the absence of his skin on her as she backed away from him, gathering her things.

“You should get dressed. We ought to go, don’t you think?”

Bellamy gazed at her in bewilderment for a moment before he shook his head, coming back to himself.

“You’re right. Yes. We need to find the colonel. And a dugout that won’t be raided,” he added darkly, re-buttoning his shirt. 

A few moments later, they extinguished the lantern and disappeared into the night. Little beknownst to either of them, the warmth of their hands lingered on each other’s skin.

… 

That night, after they’d settled into a more rudimentary, cramped dugout, Bellamy slept restlessly, the pain of his shoulder and the mental and sensory overload of the evening badgering at his consciousness. 

So many things had frightened him.

The sight of Clarke, caught up in the chaos of the raid, seconds away from being trampled, shot, or impaled on the end of a German bayonet. 

The realization from the ground that the enemy was brandishing a gun right at his chest, seconds away from ending his life.

The sound of his own revolver firing from Clarke’s hand almost instinctively as she killed a man, saving him.

And the way that he’d nearly lost his mind when she’d been so close to him, her soft breath fanning his skin as she tended to him, the surprise of her warm, delicate, unbound waist beneath her clothing as he’d held her steady.

He’d known for a long time that Clarke was important to him.

And he knew now that he mattered to her too – enough for her to take his own weapon from him and shoot a man aiming for him. 

For years now, he’d only had Octavia. Only cared about Octavia. And she was safe, back across the Atlantic. Waiting for him securely in good hands. 

But now, there was Clarke too, sneaking her way into his heart, making room for herself that he didn’t know he still had. Settling there, with an air of startling permanency.

The more people you cared about, the more you had to lose.

Especially in a war.

 _Especially_ in a war where the person in question was in the trenches, too. On the front lines, just alongside you.

As Bellamy rolled over to his uninjured side, he heard an unmistakable sniffle.

He lay still, listening, his ears pricking in the dark. 

A few seconds later, the sniffle was followed by another.

_Oh, no._

Bellamy shifted, reaching down next to him for the knob on the small lamp by his bed.

The soft light bathed the room in a very dim, golden shadow, and across the room, Clarke lay curled on her side, tears streaming quietly down her face.

“Clarke,” Bellamy murmured, hoisting himself out of bed and crossing the room in a few strides.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “I didn’t m-mean to wake you.”

Bellamy sat down next to her on the bed, placing a hand on her blanket-covered shoulder.

“It’s _me_ who should be sorry, Clarke,” he apologized, rubbing her shoulder with his thumb.

“I don’t r-regret it, Bellamy,” she said in a watery whisper. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat. But I _killed_ him. I _killed_ a _person,_ ” she said, her voice laced with shock, with shame.

“I’m so sorry,” he replied, genuinely. “The trenches are a horror that spares no one. Not even you, no matter how much you deserve to be spared.”

Rivulets of tears slipped silently from her eyes. 

“I’m so sick of feeling this way. Of discovering a brand new horror every week or two. I’m sick of _crying_.” She sniffled again. “Maybe it’ll be over by Christmas,” she hoped tiredly, her voice thin, her nose red. 

“Maybe,” he said. 

They both knew it would not be.

“But until it _is_ over, Clarke, will you promise me something?”

Her eyes lifted wearily to his, and she nodded before he even told her what he was asking.

His heart thudded in a way he couldn’t ignore.

He moved his hand from her shoulder, instead smoothing it over her head, brushing her hair back gently.

“Promise me you won’t leave the dugouts anymore without a helmet, all right?”

She nodded without hesitating. “I promise.”

Bellamy sighed, continuing to stroke the hair at the crown of her head.

“Thank you,” he replied. “We need you safe, Clarke.”

He sat with her for a while longer, tucking her hair behind her ear gently, over and over. Her eyes, weary with tears and heavy with the sorrows of the day, drifted shut, and her breathing began to even out.

His eyes lingered on her pink, tear-stained face.

“I need you.”

**_December, 1915_ **

“Final boarding call,” a sailor hollered, waving people up the wooden gangway to board the black-and-white dazzle-camouflaged transport ship. Clarke, Monty, Jasper, Finn, and Bellamy somberly filed into the ship, their meager luggage clutched in their hands. They’d taken a rickety supply train up to Le Havre, where they’d been given boarding papers for this navy transport ship, which would sail them far across the Atlantic and into the harbors of Halifax. There, they’d have five days’ leave for Christmas. Some would have to catch another train or ferry to reach their families in other provinces. They’d barely have any time to be with their loved ones. Clarke was the only one actually _from_ Halifax. She should feel lucky. 

But despite the absolute boon that this Christmas leave was to all of them – especially the lowly privates – the mood was low as they filed into sleeping quarters, tossing their bags onto bunks by way of claiming them.

Murphy was supposed to be joining them on this furlough trip.

He’d been buried in a mass grave with dozens of other broken bodies last week.

It had been a freak accident. Their unit had seen relative calm in the last month or two, enjoying less activity at the front and taking advantage of their rotations into the relief tents and the reserve trenches, miles away from the battle lines. Murphy’d been back in the reserves, helping to stock a convoy with grenades to be sent further up the lines. A faulty one had detonated in the hands of another soldier, only six feet away from where Murphy had been standing. 

Clarke had run as fast as she could to him once she’d heard the explosion, but it wouldn’t have made a difference if she’d been the fastest runner in the world. 

He lay in the brown, muddy grass, his flesh shredded and gouged beyond recognition, blood pooling beneath him and turning the mud crimson.

The dry clicking noise that his throat had made when he’d turned his head to speak to Clarke, who’d been kneeling next to him, had made her skin crawl. 

Next to him had been dear Glenn, the tall, skinny blond one everyone suspected had lied about his age at the war office.

His body had only been identifiable by the tags around his neck.

Clarke had never really bonded Murphy, but she knew that he’d been planning to go home with them at Christmas to visit his fiancée over in New Brunswick. Unlikable as he’d been, he was always the most tolerable when he’d spoken about Emori, his face lighting up any time he took out her photograph from deep in a uniform pocket. 

Clarke had mostly stopped crying over the men in her unit that they’d lost. Not because she was not sad, but because she could not survive this war if she let herself weep over every lost boy, every one she had no power to save.

But, surprising herself, in the privacy of her bed that night, she’d wept for Glenn, for his family that would never see him home again, and for Murphy, who’d she’d been with since she’d first landed in France, and whose fiancée would be getting a telegram instead of her betrothed for Christmas. 

Bellamy rarely spoke of the men they lost, other than a few words honoring them, and another speech pushing Company B forward, encouraging them to fight, to win, to survive. But Clarke could tell that it ate at him too. He didn’t have to tell her so. She knew by the way he sometimes stared listlessly into the light of campfires, the way he sniffed, turning his gaze away from everyone else’s when he was standing in a group, and the way he gently clapped and nudged the shoulders of his men whenever he walked past them. 

No one could see so much death and remain unaffected, and Bellamy was not exempt by any means.

He’d been looking forward to seeing his sister again for the first time since April, and Clarke was sure that he still was, but the death of one in their furlough group had seemed to dampen the spirits of them all. 

Clarke hoisted herself onto a top bunk, wary at how much it wobbled. The bunks were stacked three-high, and looked as if they’d been quite haphazardly constructed. 

A part of her wondered what her quarters would have been like if she’d taken the offer up to travel without the men in her unit, on a navy hospital ship staffed with scores of other nurses.

Safer, probably. Cleaner. Quieter. 

But she would have had to work during the voyage, and maybe she was selfish, but she was tired. She didn’t want to work any more than she had to.

Clarke was proud that she’d been trusted enough to be given the pioneering position she had. But sometimes, after long, muddy, stinking, blood-coated days, she briefly wished that she’d been sent to a convalescent home in London, or even just a field hospital away from the front lines instead. True, the other nurses saw just as many mangled men as she did, but they saw the aftermath. They didn’t have to watch it happen – over, and over, and over – as Clarke did. They didn’t know the terror that was being covered in the spray of blood as a man above you in the trenches was perforated by artillery. 

And so she’d quietly kept her boarding papers to travel alongside her soldiers, who she knew, and who knew what exactly it was she was running from, if only for a little while.

Bellamy trudged slowly into the aisle between bunks, laying his bag on the middle bunk just below hers.

He looked up at her with the faintest of smiles. “This way, if something happens and these absurd-looking bunks collapse, I’ll have the least amount of weight fall on me, and only the middle distance to fall.”

Finn appeared next to him, tossing his pack onto the bottom bunk opposite them. “Nice plan, captain. I wouldn’t mind having Miss Griffin’s weight on top of me, either.” 

Clarke merely rolled her eyes at the comment, which once would have made her blush on and off for hours. 

“Can it, Collins. If you wouldn’t say it in front of your mother, don’t say it at all.” Bellamy grit his teeth, swatting Finn hard in the ankle with the steel toe of his boot. 

Finn swore as Monty and Jasper settled their things onto the two bunks above him. 

Clarke looked down at her hands, frowning at the dirt that still lingered between her fingers. 

“You know, boys, I think I’m going to have a wash before all the other soldiers take over the facilities. Monty, will you be sure to save my bunk if anyone tries for it?”

Monty peeked down from over his own top bunk. “Of course.”

“I’ll go with you,” Bellamy spoke up, rising from his own bunk next to her. 

“To help her wash?” Jasper asked, grinning wolfishly. 

If Finn’s lewd comment hadn’t embarrassed her, this one certainly made up for it. Clarke felt her face begin to burn, and she looked down at her shoes.

Bellamy narrowed his eyes. “To watch the door. Last I checked there were no ladies’ showers on this troop transport vessel.” He shook his head. “Don’t let Collins keep rubbing off on you.”

Head down, Clarke grabbed her bag, eager to be alone behind the closed door of a washroom all to herself. 

“Take your time. I know it’s been a while,” Bellamy nodded, leaning against the opposite wall of the corridor as she opened the door to the washroom, which was mercifully empty. 

“Maybe I won’t smell like a ditch when you see me again,” she said wryly, and he shook his head at her, grinning as he slowly disappeared behind the closing door. 

The bathroom was small, and clearly made with men in mind. There were only two toilet rooms; the rest of the wall was lined with urinals. Against another wall was a row of sinks, and at the back was a tiled wetroom of sorts, with multiple shower heads dangling precariously. No bathtubs, and no curtains for privacy. 

Clarke was happy she got here when she did. It would probably be the only opportunity she would have to fully bathe before arriving in Halifax. 

Once she got the shower tap turned on, Clarke began to disrobe, tucking her dirty uniform into a compartment of her bag and reaching for her now quite-slim bar of soap, which had still gotten far less use than she would have liked. It was a bar she’d bought in London – lavender-scented. 

Even though Clarke had lost every bit of her luggage when the _Lusitania_ had gone down, including her beloved copy of _Anne of Green Gables,_ she’d still only purchased two gowns in London – it was all the army could reimburse her for, alongside her pair of nurse uniforms. They were plain, unadorned, and she hadn’t put one on since she’d left for the front. 

Now fully unclothed, Clarke took her bar of soap and stepped under the spray of the shower head. They didn’t have one at home, and she wasn’t used to it at all, but she was intrigued by the concept of washing in this rain-like bath.

In water that did not come from heated pipes, apparently. 

She gasped as the icy spray flooded over her, soaking her hair and raising goosebumps on her skin.

So much for a relaxing wash. She instead made it very quick, scrubbing the dust and dirt from her body as hastily as she could, watching it circle the tiled drain. 

She dressed quickly, shivering as the air around her bit at her chilled skin. She laced her corset as tight as she could on her own, and pulled on the navy long-sleeved dress, pinning her hair up into a coiled braid afterward. 

Bellamy studied her for a moment when she emerged out into the corridor. 

“Feel better?” He finally said, hoisting himself off the wall he’d been leaning against.

“Debatable,” Clarke replied, rubbing her upper arms. “It’s December, and the water isn’t heated in there.”

“I’d give you my coat, but it would just make you filthy all over again.”

“That’s all right,” Clarke said tiredly. “Are you looking forward to seeing your sister again? I bet she’ll be waiting at the docks for her big brother.”

Bellamy had mentioned earlier that since he wouldn’t have enough time to get to Toronto and back, Octavia had gotten her friend Harper’s family to agree to come to Halifax for Christmas instead, where they’d all be staying downtown. 

“I hope so,” he began to answer. A group of battered, hungry-looking soldiers was coming upon them from the opposite direction, and their eyes had locked on to Clarke. One wolf-whistled, and the others began to call out.

“What’s a pretty lady like you doing on a troop ship, huh?”

“Got a kiss to spare for me, darling?”

“Well bless my soul, do they let ranking officers bring their own whores on transports now?”

Bellamy stopped in his tracks, staring down the group that had come upon them.

“She’s a medic, and you’d be wise to never say something like that to her again,” he all but growled. Clarke suddenly found herself grateful that she’d never truly found herself on the other side of Bellamy’s anger. Just his annoyance, from time to time. A bit of frustration, here and there, but those instances had seemed to occur less and less the longer they knew each other.

“They put ladies like you down in the trenches? By god, what a foolish idea! What use could she be there? Probably screams every time a shell hits nearby.” The man speaking, tall and ruddy, smirked at her, his eyes lingering below her neckline. 

It was one thing to take stupid remarks from the men in her unit – men she knew, and men that she knew would never do her harm. 

But from strangers? 

That lit a fire in her belly.

“I’ve shot enemy soldiers bigger than you are,” she sneered, stepping toward him, her trepidation quickly replaced by anger. “Didn’t think twice about it.”

Frowning, and apparently unwilling to take the word of a woman, the group of men looked questioningly at Bellamy, searching for confirmation from a captain instead.

Bellamy merely nodded, his expression stony. 

The men looked back at Clarke, their eyes narrowing in distaste.

“Well then, you’re hardly a woman, no matter how swell you might look on the outside. Come on, men, better to hold out for a real sweetheart who’d never dream of going down into a trench.”

The privates finally moved along, their gazes now full of suspicion, disgust.

“Thanks for not clarifying that I’ve only shot _one_ soldier,” Clarke sighed, glancing up at Bellamy, who was staring after them with a sour expression coloring his chiseled features. 

“That probably won’t be the last time you have a conversation like that before we land,” he finally said, grimacing as he ushered them back to their bunks, his hand grazing lightly against the small of her back. “Sorry about that.”

“I expected nothing less. I’d still rather be here with you all than stuck tending to men in a crowded room for days on end on the hospital ship.” Clarke winced. “That sounds uncharitable. I only mean that-”

“I know what you mean,” he reassured, ducking under the low doorway they passed through. “It would be like me choosing to lead raids on the ship on the way home for Christmas furlough. Which I certainly would not want to do.”

Clarke’s shoulders fell, tension leaving them when she realized he knew how she felt. He seemed to know that often, these days. She would marvel at how in tune they could be, if she ever had the mental energy to do so.

“Anyways, what about you? Will your mother be waiting at the docks the moment we land back in Nova Scotia?” 

“Probably not,” she answered truthfully. “My mother works at a hospital in Halifax, too. When she’s not working, most of the time she’s too tired to venture out into town. I’m sure she’ll see me back at our flat, whenever I get there. If she’s not on shift.”

Bellamy frowned. Clarke could see what he was thinking, and she hastened to correct it.

“It’s not so bad as it sounds,” she added. “She just has a strong work ethic, and she never seems to want to rest if she feels there’s more work she could do in a hospital. She only dabbled in it before, but her dedication has grown considerably since we lost my father. I suppose it helps her. Fills the time. I know it did for me.”

Clarke smiled. “I’m sure she’ll have scraped up a Christmas dinner for me, all the same. And have a fine evening dress made for me, even though she knows full well I have nowhere to wear it. She still has dreams for me that don’t involve the war, you know.”

“I think that’s a good thing,” Bellamy nodded. “I think it’s important to believe that there will be an ‘after.’ It keeps us going.”

As they returned back to their bunk room, Clarke wondered vaguely what Bellamy hoped his “after” would be.

… 

Clarke glanced around the table at the flushed faces staring her down. She was sitting with her back in a corner, with the rest of the boys on the outer circle of the round mess hall table. They’d started doing that so random sailors couldn’t walk straight up to her and proposition her after their first night in the mess hall. 

“Monty?” Clarke asked him, his cheeks flushed pink from the rum they’d been given after dinner. 

He shook his head regretfully. “Fold.”

“You’ll get ‘em next time, Monty,” Bellamy chimed in sympathetically from his seat on the wall, a foot or two away from the table. He hadn’t felt comfortable gambling with soldiers he was ranked to be in charge of. Didn’t feel right to take bets on their meager pay, he’d said. 

Clarke’s stoic face remained, sweeping her gaze around the table. “All right then,” she sighed, her tone deceptively weary. “How about a straight flush?”

She grinned as she slapped her hand of cards down face up on the table.

“Goddammit, Clarke, we should have never taught you how to play poker,” Jasper moaned, shoving the pile of pocket change across the table toward her. 

Bellamy grinned as she gleefully collected her winnings, though his face was still a bit pale from lingering seasickness. 

“You fellas won’t have any money to catch your trains if you play me again,” Clarke laughed, pocketing her newfound change.

“I’ll be so happy when we dock in the harbor tomorrow,” Finn groaned. “I’ve had enough of troopships. I’ve decided that I don’t like them.”

“It’s so cramped down here that it almost makes me miss the _Lusitania_ ,” Clarke mused, her cheeks just as flushed with rum as Monty’s. The boys knew how nice a good round of drink could be for someone coming from the front, and none of them batted an eye anymore when they saw Clarke partake. War wasn’t a time to begrudge anyone indulgence for the sake of social norms. 

Bellamy snorted. “You mean, the ship that almost killed us?”

She shrugged. “It was very nice, other than that. Private washrooms. Private bedrooms. Meals so nice the menu was written entirely in French. Everything was quite a delight up until. . .it wasn’t.” She grimaced. 

“Everything?” Bellamy asked, raising an eyebrow quizzically, the question more loaded than anyone else around the table could realize.

“Everything,” Clarke nodded, shooting him a small smile.

“Boy, sometimes I forget you two were on that ship when you were on the way to us,” Monty muttered. “How do you not feel like god has put a price on your head, or something? Almost sinking in the Atlantic, then off straight to the western front.” He whistled, slowly shaking his head.

“One could say the opposite as well, given we _haven’t_ been seriously injured or died yet,” Clarke countered, but her heart wasn’t in the answer. She knew in her head that they were lucky, but she certainly didn’t feel it in her bones. 

“I can’t believe that tomorrow, it’ll be two days until Christmas,” Jasper said suddenly, shifting the subject. “Remember when everyone said the war would be over by Christmas?” He laughed humorlessly. Monty patted his back. 

“Too bad there’s not any mistletoe on this ship for kissing under,” Finn said slyly with a suggestive glance toward Clarke.

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Ah yes, because that would make sense. A ship planning on transporting hundreds of soldiers, and no women, certainly should have thought to add some mistletoe aboard. They didn’t even know I’d be here! So who is it that you dream of laying one on, Finn? Monty? Or was it Jasper?”

Finn grumbled. 

“I sure hope my mother isn’t expecting a Christmas present from me,” Monty said forlornly. “I’m not sure where I would have gotten one at all, much less one worth giving. I doubt she’d be thrilled with a tin of trench biscuits.”

“I’m sure you’re the only gift she wants, Monty,” Clarke reassured him, leaning over to pat his hand. 

“Hey, Bellamy, you’re an officer,” Jasper piped up.

Bellamy cocked his head. “Yes, yes I am..?”

“You should go see if they’ll give you a bottle of rum! There’s hardly anyone left in here, and it’s the last night. It could be your Christmas gift to us,” he insinuated, lifting his hands in supplication.

“I could go for some more,” Finn agreed. “Definitely.”

“Last I checked, I don’t take orders from you,” Bellamy grumbled, shaking his head.

“We’re not ordering! Just asking nicely!” Monty clarified, looking around the group for agreement. 

Bellamy glanced around the table, bemused at all of their tipsy, hopeful faces.

“I’ll ask. No promises on delivering,” he said sternly, pushing out of his seat. 

After he’d crossed the room to chat with one of the mess hall attendants, Monty sighed, leaning back into his chair.

“We’re all lucky, you know that? Not everyone gets a commanding officer that both knows what he’s doing _and_ has a heart.”

“Hear, hear,” Jasper agreed, clinking his empty glass against Monty’s.

Clarke frowned. “Is that so unusual?” She asked, glancing around the table.

“Oh, absolutely. The captain of our unit before we were assigned Captain Blake was a nightmare. Not a very good leader, nor a very good strategist. I’m not sure how he ever really got promoted, to be frank,” Finn admitted. 

“What happened to him?” Clarke wondered.

“Stepped on a grenade,” Jasper explained, grimacing. “There wasn’t enough left of him to bury.”

Clarke swallowed in distaste. She knew the type. She’d seen it happen, over and over again.

Bellamy reappeared, looming over them, clutching a nearly full bottle of cheap whiskey. 

“Cheers,” he said wryly, holding back a grin. He popped open the cap, refilling all of their glasses. “Never say I never did anything for you all.”

“Have some too, captain,” Monty encouraged, nodding at him after a long sip. “Partake with the lowly privates for an evening. And Clarke, of course,” he amended, smiling sheepishly at her.

“I don’t know,” he said doubtfully, settling back into his chair. “My stomach has only just gotten over its disagreement with the ocean waves.”

“Go ahead,” Clarke said, taking the bottle from his hands and pouring into his glass. “We deserve a drink, don’t we? All of us.”

The general merriment seemed to creep its way into Bellamy, and he shrugged, grabbing his own glass and tossing it back in one swallow. “Only one or two,” he admonished, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

His concession was met with a round of cheers and hurrahs as they all refilled their own glasses.

Clarke, hovering pleasantly between tipsy and intoxicated, began to hum the verses of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”. 

Finn laughed. “Clarke, you’ve never been drunk, have you? It’s not something ladies really do. Not the proper ones, anyways.”

Clarke glared at him. “Well, I guess I’m not proper, then, because I have been, once! My friend Wells and I sneaked some brandy from my father’s liquor cabinet when we were fifteen and our parents were away at a party in town. And we were sick all night afterward!” She laughed at the memory of them taking turns to run outside and vomit into the bushes. 

“You never stop surprising us, Griffin,” Jasper said, shaking his head, slightly incredulous.

“I’m a female medic in the Canadian army. I should certainly hope not,” Clarke huffed, taking another clumsy sip from her glass. 

She was, in her intoxication, suddenly struck by a fresh memory. A face, covered in blood and dirt. A mouth, struggling to speak. A body, torn to shreds.

Clarke hastily topped off everyone’s glasses. “To Murphy,” she proposed, holding her drink in the air, waiting for the others to tap it with their own in a toast.

“To Murphy,” they chorused disjointedly, clinking each others’ glasses in a round. 

“May he rest in peace, that surly bastard,” Finn murmured, tossing back the remains of his drink. 

They were silent for a moment before Jasper grabbed the deck of cards again, frantic for a way to break the gloom of the moment. “Who would like to play a game of bluff? Cash-free, of course,” he amended, shooting Clarke a look.

They played until the bottle ran empty, and then they played some more.

… 

Early into the morning, long after they’d stumbled into their bunks and fallen into a drunken sleep, Clarke bolted awake, her heart racing. 

She’d dreamed she was on the nightmarishly-tilted deck of the _Lusitania_ again, and there’d been no more lifeboats in sight in the water below. 

Her skin prickled with a cold sweat as she tried to even out her breathing.

Frustrated, she flipped onto her stomach, letting one hand dangle off the side of the bunk, her fingers wiggling through the air, just to prove to herself that she was in the sleeping quarters of a troopship and not dangling over the edge of a sinking ocean liner.

Her breath caught as a warm hand closed around her own, squeezing it.

Bellamy.

“It’s all right,” he whispered softly from the bed beneath her, his voice clouded with sleep. “You’re all right.”

Clarke’s heart rate inched back toward normal, and she laced her fingers through his, letting her eyes fall shut once more.

… 

Bellamy glanced back at Clarke as they descended down the gangway, their bags in hand.

“You should come meet my sister before we part ways,” he proposed. As if realizing belatedly the social pressure he’d be putting on a young, single woman to accompany him down to the public terminal, he glanced further back, extending his invitation to Jasper and Monty. “You two, as well, if you have time before you catch your train.”

Finn came dashing down the ramp, rushing past the line, his bag clutched to his chest so he wouldn’t lose it in the chaos.

“I’m going to miss my train,” he shouted as he whizzed by, stumbling down to the dock. “Last one today for Moncton!”

And then there were four. 

“I don’t want to intrude on your family time,” Clarke said uncertainly. That being said, Clarke didn’t particularly have anywhere she needed to be. Her mother had sent her a telegram to the troopship a few days ago, telling her to catch a cab home from the harbor, as she had to work until late in the evening in order to have a few days off for Christmas. 

“You won’t at all. Octavia likes making new acquaintances. Besides, her friend and the rest of their family will be there as well.”

Clarke acquiesced, giving in to her curiosity about Bellamy’s little sister. Would she be just like him, or just the opposite? 

“Is your sister spoken for?” Jasper asked as he and Monty caught up to the two of them at the bottom of the gangway.

“Don’t even start,” Bellamy warned, and they pushed forward, filing between the crush of the crowd.

“ _Bellamy!_ ” Came a shriek from nowhere, and suddenly there was a rush of lavender silk and plum wool, all cut in the latest fashion. A young woman threw herself into Bellamy’s arms, and he laughed, spinning her around. 

“I’ve missed you so much,” she gasped into his neck, squeezing him before stepping back to get a better look at his face.

“I’ve missed you too, O,” Bellamy smiled, his voice cracking.

Clarke’s heart gave an unexpected twinge. It was a rare sight to see Bellamy so happy, and the rarity of it made her a little melancholy. 

Remembering his manners, he held out an arm in the direction of his companions. “Octavia, these are some of the personnel from my unit. Monty Green, Jasper Jordan, Clarke Griffin.”

While the boys’ eyes lingered on Octavia, who Clarke admitted was really quite pretty, Octavia’s eyes lingered on Clarke.

“The nurse medic. I’ve heard so much about you!” Octavia smiled, extending her hand in greeting. 

“Nothing too bad, I hope,” Clarke replied, glancing nervously at Bellamy.

“Not at all! I wouldn’t believe Bellamy even if he had said anything unkind. You just might be the bravest girl I’ve met, Miss Griffin.” Octavia adjusted her hat, looping her arm through her brother’s, and gestured for everyone to walk. 

“The McIntyres are waiting over here. Wait till you see the suite that we’ve got back at the hotel! You’ve a room all to yourself. Bet you’re not used to that,” she said proudly, patting his arm.

“I’m not,” Bellamy conceded as he and Clarke studiously avoided each other’s eyes. 

Octavia waved to a young blond woman in a similarly fashionable winter coat who was standing with her parents under an awning off to the side. “Harper, I found him!”

Octavia’s friend and her family introduced themselves, and Clarke couldn’t help but notice how Monty’s eyes struggled to stray from Harper. He looked positively moonstruck. Jasper, gazing at Octavia in wonder, was hardly any better off. 

Clarke smiled.

“It’s such an honor to meet you boys,” Mrs. McIntyre gushed. “Such brave soldiers, back from the front. Tell me, what time is your trip out? Where are you headed?”

“Just to Charlottetown, this evening,” Monty replied, finally recovering his wits. 

“Oh, not so very far at all! What do you boys say to joining us for tea before you leave, hm?”

Both heads nodded vigorously as the boys eagerly accepted the invitation.

Though Harper had been sweet in introducing herself and chatting briefly with her, Clarke couldn’t help but notice that neither of her parents had spared her so much as a glance, much less a word.

It shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise. Clarke knew even before leaving for France that a lot of people didn’t agree with women running off to join the war effort. Especially not one down in the trenches alone. 

No lady’s reputation could emerge on the other side of that without being in tatters.

She lifted her gaze to find that Bellamy had noticed it as well, his eyes darting back and forth between the McIntyres and Clarke, a frown tugging at his lips.

Faintly embarrassed, Clarke moved to quickly excuse herself. 

“I’m sorry, but I must find a cab and get home. It was so nice to meet you all. Please excuse me.”

As she gave a slight bow and turned to leave, she felt a hand wrap around her arm.

“Wait,” Bellamy asked suddenly. “Let me escort you home, won’t you? The roads look busy, and I’d hate for you to go alone.”

Clarke met his eyes with confusion. Surely, after all they’d seen and done, he trusted her to make it across town to her flat on her own?

“Bellamy, I can-”

“Please,” he insisted, his eyes locked on hers.

Suddenly, she didn’t see why she was protesting him.

She didn’t want to say goodbye to Bellamy. Not just yet.

“All right,” she agreed, and his shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly.

“O, will you write down the address of the hotel for me? I’ll meet you all back there later.”

Octavia’s eyes darted between Clarke and Bellamy. 

“Of course. I’d be angry at you for being rude if you’d sent her back home all alone,” she replied, reaching into her reticule for a card. “Here’s the card for the hotel. It’s just past the citadel,” she said warmly. “I’ll see you later, all right, big brother?”

He gave her a brief hug, shooting a glance behind her at Jasper and Monty as if to say “you two better behave while I’m gone.” 

“Later,” he nodded, and, offering his arm to Clarke, he set them off in the direction of the cab stand. 

“You didn’t have to, you know,” Clarke murmured, happy for the warmth of his sleeve against her ungloved hand. 

She could hardly remember the last time she’d worn gloves. Her mother would be aghast.

“I wanted to,” he said simply. “Besides, I think we deserve a moment of peace after a week in those ship bunks, don’t you?”

Clarke huffed in amusement. “Don’t I ever. That was worse than the dugouts, somehow. And the sounds the ship made in the water at night – it, well. It made me dream of the sinking, you know? I thought I was past it, and I think I am, mostly due to seeing far worse things since it happened, but some terrors don’t ever fully go away, I suppose.”

“I know what you mean,” he agreed. It seemed he was gracious enough not to bring up her panicked nightmare from last night that had woken the two of them up. That, or else he’d been too tired for it to register in his memory. “Any loud noise on the ship immediately put me on edge. It was as if, every time, the blood in my veins believed it was a torpedo.”

Clarke gave directions as they hopped into a cab. 

“I can’t believe I’m getting to see the princess’s castle,” Bellamy teased as they set off on their way.

Clarke rolled her eyes. “It’s just a flat, Bellamy.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot. The real castle’s out on the bay.”

Clarke frowned. “I _wish_ I could be there at Christmastime,” she admitted. “My mother doesn’t like to stay out there anymore. Too far out of town. Too much of a reminder of my father.”

Bellamy was quiet for a moment.

“Then let’s go,” he finally said, turning his head to study her.

“What? We can’t, Bellamy, it’s over an hour’s drive out there, and I _know_ you have places to be. Don’t you want to have tea with your sister?” Clarke raised her eyebrows.

“I’ll have five whole days to spend time with my sister. They won’t miss me for a few hours, I promise. Besides, I don’t want to have to referee between the girls and the boys. Surely you noticed the puppy eyes Jasper and Monty were making,” he said, his voice tinged with exasperation.

“They’re hopeless,” Clarke shook her head. “But really, Bellamy. You don’t have to.”

“But I’d like to,” he said gently.

Despite what she said, now that she was presented with the idea, she _really_ did want to go with Bellamy to her home on the bay.

She’d missed it. And for some reason, a part of her wanted him to see it. To know it, as it was a part of her as well.

Her mother likely wouldn’t be home for hours. 

Clarke leaned forward, rapping the front window of the cab. “Driver, we’ve changed our minds. Could you reroute the destination to Seabright, please?”

… 

After a while traversing over marshy land, the driver turned left at a signpost that read “Lighthouse Route”. Soon after, the coastline came into view along one side of the road, and the sound of the ocean waves crashing against rocks soothed them, like the sound of mother nature’s lullaby.

The polar opposite of whistling, booming artillery fire. 

Bellamy alternated between watching the pretty coastline roll past, and watching Clarke watch the window. He thought he noticed a certain relaxation of tension in her posture, a slowing of her breathing. It was as if the sight of the tide filtered into her veins like a drug, soothing her. It was a sight he was entirely unused to seeing. 

Months ago, Bellamy would have been prepared to hate whatever was in store at the end of this journey, to scowl at the privilege and wealth of the girl sent to burden Company B.

Now, he couldn’t feel any more different. 

Next to him, Clarke leaned forward to tap the window by the cabbie. “Sir, could you stop here please?” She slipped him a few coins before Bellamy could protest. “And could you have the cab company send another car out here in two hours or so? We’d be much obliged.” Clarke shot him a brief, questioning glance, and he nodded. 

As they stepped down from the car and moved aside so it could drive away, Bellamy got a better look at where they’d been delivered to.

Up the path, nestled into a copse of trees, stood a moderately-sized two-story house, its wooden siding painted a pale yellow. If one looked longer than a moment or two, neglect started to become visible around its frame: near the windows, the paint cracked and peeled, and the small front porch was sunken slightly in the middle. A shutter on a second-floor window banged and flapped in the wind.

“I suppose no one really lives here anymore,” Clarke spoke up with a frown. “But I still think of it as home, more than anywhere else.”

Bellamy began to step forward. 

“Wait,” Clarke put out a hand. “I know it’s cold out, but would you walk down to the water with me first? I haven’t been there in so long.”

Bellamy nodded, trying not to shiver in the wind. Though Nova Scotia was far from the horrors of the front, there was no denying that the weather here was much more brutal than it had been in northern France. 

They walked side by side down the gentle slope, their shoes crunching over the dead yellow grass. Bellamy was struck by the thought that he so rarely got to walk like this with her, slowly, elbow to elbow. Everything in the trenches was hurried, single-file. The closest thing to a leisurely stroll they got was. . .well, nothing, really. 

“It must have been nice, growing up by the sea,” Bellamy remarked as the two of them paused over some smooth rocks, as close to the tide as they dared. He gazed out over the gray-blue wash of the horizon, watching the sea foam up white in little crests, watching gulls soar and dive to the surface. “It’s so much more welcoming here, standing on the shore, than it feels when you’re on a ship surrounded by nothing but water for hundreds of miles.”

“I loved it,” Clarke admitted, her gaze following his own. “The water here is always cold, you know, but that didn’t stop me from running down here every day in the summer. This is a bit silly, but after my mother had read ‘The Little Mermaid’ to me as a child – you know, the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen – for years I’d dreamed of being a lady of the sea, with a fishtail for legs, spending my days with the creatures down below. It’s ridiculous, is it not?” She scuffed her toe absentmindedly against the smooth stone they were standing on.

“Doesn’t she turn into seafoam at the end of the story?” Bellamy asked, tilting his head at her.

“There’s always a price that must be paid for getting things we want,” Clarke answered, her tone carefully neutral as she shrugged her shoulders. 

Bellamy frowned. What price was it that she was thinking of? 

“Let’s turn back,” she sighed. “I’d forgotten how cold the wind is here. Come on, I remember where my mother hides the spare key.” 

Back on the porch of the house, Clarke pushed aside a clay flower pot near the door. 

“Aha! Still there,” she exclaimed, bending down to snatch up a brassy-looking house key. “My mother never was particularly creative about hiding spots. I always found my Christmas presents every year before she could manage to put them under the tree. You might say I was a bit of a precocious child, I suppose.”

Bellamy would have been surprised if she hadn’t been. 

It was warmer in the house, but not warm enough for them to justify forsaking their coats. Thankfully, it seemed that Clarke’s mother had maintained the interior just enough to keep it respectable, and the gathering dust had been kept to a minimum.

As he walked through the door, he reflexively removed his hat, placing it gingerly on a side table in the foyer.

The furnishings leaned more toward practicality and away from luxury. The rugs were a bit threadbare, and the sofa in the sitting room to the left was sturdy-looking, but plainly upholstered. The rails supporting the banister leading up the staircase were in need of a paint job, and the wooden stairs of a good polish. 

He’d pegged her all wrong. She’d never really been a princess in the first place.

“I’ll show you around, as long as you don’t mind that there’s not much to see,” she offered, nodding toward the stairs.

“Not at all,” he replied quietly. Something about the emptiness of the house, the near-abandonment of it, made him feel as if he ought not raise his voice. 

As they climbed the staircase, Bellamy noticed two portraits hanging on the wall next to it: one of which he assumed were Clarke’s parents, dressed in finery and surrounded by a large wedding party. The other was of Clarke. The photograph looked to have been taken maybe four or five years ago, and Clarke smiled rebelliously at the camera, pale waves of hair cascading around her face. 

That had been Clarke once, and she’d grown up here, within these very walls. He almost felt as if he was intruding, somehow. 

Following Clarke’s lead, they wove in and out of the rooms, most of which had been partially closed. Much of the furniture laid like ghosts, white sheets draped languidly over them. 

“And this is – was – my room,” she finally said, pushing a door open.

He squeezed by her, and as he passed, he was deeply aware of how close they were, the crown of her head only an inch or two from his nose. 

It was as if the air between them had been sucked away. He briefly imagined pressing his lips to her hairline. 

Alarmed at the thought, he swallowed hard. What on earth was he thinking? 

It dawned on him, for the first time, that the two of them were unmarried, unattached, and entirely unchaperoned in an empty house far away from any other signs of life. 

It felt strange to be in a world where that mattered again.

But she’d never seemed to protest, and they’d been sleeping within ten feet of each other for months. 

He ought to be more careful with her, but right now, he didn’t want to be anywhere but here – in body, or in spirit.

His eyes roved to a small wooden desk in the corner, covered in a rainbow of paints and flanked by a similarly colorful easel. On it sat a lovely ocean scene, dotted by beachgoers, flocks of seagulls, and grass waving in the wind. It was good. _Actually_ good. There was talent there.

“You paint?”

“I did,” Clarke admitted, her eyes lingering on the easel. “I wanted to go to an art conservatory, but then my father passed away, and the war started, and, well, it’s not very easy to carry around art supplies in the trenches, I suppose.” 

“You still could,” he encouraged, nudging her arm. “You should.”

“You know, sometimes I do let myself think about the future,” she said quietly, twisting her arms to fold them across her chest. “About art conservatory, about moving back into this house and fixing it up. But I’ve found that now, it feels almost sacrilegious to even dream of those things. As if that, if I acknowledge in any way that I want them, they will surely be taken away from me. It seems best to think about the future now instead in terms of making it through the end of the day. The end of the week, the month, and so on. Anything bigger feels careless.”

“We all have to dream, Clarke,” he answered, leaning closer to her. “Without dreams, there isn’t a reason to keep going.”

“And what are yours?” She asked, turning her face up to his. 

_To live,_ he thought bitterly, secretly concurring with her own perspective.

 _To see you live,_ a second thought, quieter, more tender, echoed.

“To get through this without leaving my sister alone in the world,” he said truthfully. 

He and Octavia had always had each other, and their mother. 

Their mother was gone.

He wouldn’t let his sister be the only one left.

Clarke held his eyes for a long moment, their gazes taking refuge in each other, before she moved past him, squeezing his arm lightly as she went.

“Let’s go sit for a while,” she proposed, venturing back toward the stairs. “I’m so tired. I feel as if I’m always tired, these days.”

And so they settled onto the sofa in the sitting room, speaking very little. A bookshelf near the window caught his eye, and he squinted, trying to make out the titles. 

“Go look, it’s all right,” she laughed. “They were my father’s.”

Bellamy ambled over to the shelves, not realizing how much he’d missed the escapism of books until now. His eyes scanned the spines: _Barchester Towers, The Picture of Dorian Gray, A Tale of Two Cities, Dr. Faustus._

“He really liked to read English authors, it seems,” Bellamy remarked. “A man of taste.”

“You should take one.”

Bellamy turned to look at Clarke, who was studying him with the strangest expression on her face.

“I couldn’t-”

“Please do. There’s no one around here left to read them, and he’d want them to be loved. Count it as a Christmas present, Bellamy. From me.” She smiled gently. 

“Are you sure?” He asked. It felt wrong to plunder the shelves of Clarke’s dead father.

“I’d like you to,” she nodded. “Really.”

Bellamy turned back to the shelf and reached for the slim copy of _Dr. Faustus,_ pocketing it carefully.

“Thank you,” he said sincerely. “It’ll do me good to read a bit at night while I’m here. It’ll give me an excuse to stop socializing when I no longer feel like keeping up with the conversation.”

“It’s worth it for that reason alone,” she agreed. 

Bellamy sank down next to her on the long sofa, probably closer than he should have. He glanced down at his watch. 

It had already been an hour.

Clarke Griffin had a way of making time fly around her. 

“Do you know what’s terrible?” She said suddenly, her voice thin.

“What is it?”

“I should be grateful for this furlough, and I certainly am happy to be away from the front for a while.”

“But. . .you’re not sure how to talk to people now who haven’t been there themselves,” Bellamy guessed.

“That’s exactly it,” she nodded, her eyes tired as they met his. “I don’t know how to speak to others like I’m a human being anymore. Most of the time I don’t even _feel_ human anymore. I can’t bring myself to care about gossip or local happenings or light conversation, but at the same time, I dread any questions or remarks about what I’ve been through. Quite frankly, I just want some hot food and to sleep, uninterrupted, for as long as my body wants to sleep. But that feels unkind, and ungrateful.”

“And I promise you that every other soldier on furlough feels the same,” Bellamy assured her. “No one has really learned how to talk about what’s happened.”

“I just fear the expectations for me will be different,” Clarke worried. “As someone in a novel position, and as a woman. I don’t know what’s expected of me anymore in society, but I feel certain that whatever those expectations are, I cannot meet them.” 

“Well, you’ve certainly exceeded those of everyone in the trenches that’s met you,” Bellamy replied. _As well as mine, every day, over and over,_ he thought _._

“Thank you,” she nodded, but he could tell by the set of her shoulders that she was unconvinced. 

“We still have an hour left here. Why don’t you sleep now? You’re safe here, and I won’t mind.”

Clarke’s shoulder sagged with relief. “Are you certain?” She asked, though she was already removing her crocheted tam from her head. 

“As certain as can be,” he promised. 

Bellamy’s heart lurched when she leaned toward him, lowering her head into his lap, the soft weight of her cheek resting against his thigh.

Words deserted him. He’d expected her to go upstairs to her room, or at the very least, have him move to the adjacent armchair. 

He hadn’t thought that when he’d said “here,” she’d take it to mean “him”. 

And yet he found himself pleased that she’d chosen him over any other option that made sense. 

“You’re too good to me,” she murmured sleepily, nestling deeper into the wool of his pants leg.

“Believe me, I’m not,” he said back, his voice low. 

His hand fell to rest at her side, his palm nesting in the curve of her waist.

The two of them remained that way until the honk of the cab outside startled them awake. 

… 

“Happy Christmas, everyone,” Mrs. McIntyre cheered across the table over the remains of their final course – an apple cake, baked with rationed spices and sugar and smothered in a buttery brandy sauce. 

The meal had been rather ordinary for a Christmas dinner, but it was so decadent in comparison to Bellamy’s usual trench fare that he almost felt ill. His stomach wasn’t used to sweets, to butter or milk or tender cuts of meat. 

“Thank you so much, Mrs. McIntyre,” Bellamy nodded, rising from the table along with the rest of the dinner party. “I haven’t had a meal like that in over a year.”

“Anything for our brave boys,” she chimed, tugging at the high lace collar of her dinner gown. The room was warm, almost suffocatingly so, thanks to the crackling fire in the hearth. 

“Anyone for a game of cards?” Harper asked cheerfully, walking toward the sitting room that adjoined the massive suite that the group was currently occupying in the hotel.

Bellamy tried not to grimace. Yes, it was Christmas, and Christmas was no time to be alone, but he’d been in the company of others all day, dodging innocent yet prying questions about his time at the front. Did he lose many of his men? Had he shot many Germans or Austro-Hungarians? Did he have a sweetheart to write back home to?

It exhausted him. He feared that the war was making him even more taciturn than he had been before. 

But he just didn’t want to talk about it. 

If he answered with any honesty, he’d only shock the company he was with, anyways. 

“I think I’ll turn in early,” Bellamy demurred. “Take advantage of the luxury of sleep while I can.”

“So soon?” Harper’s mother inquired, looking crestfallen. The woman had come across as a bit starstruck to be keeping company with an army captain home from the war – much to the complete indifference of her husband, Bellamy had noted wryly. 

“My apologies,” he said as politely as he could, heading down the hall that led to the group of bedrooms.

As his hand touched the doorknob, he was interrupted. 

“Wait, Bellamy,” his sister whispered after him. “Come here for a minute.”

Relaxing at the realization that it was just his sister, he complied, following her into her and Harper’s room.

“I brought you something. A Christmas gift. You don’t think I forgot, did you?” She laughed.

“I wasn’t expecting anything, O. It’s all right,” he reassured.

“Well, it isn’t much, but I thought you’d at least take some comfort in having it,” she murmured, digging a small cloth pouch out from the dresser drawer.

“Open it,” she encouraged, bouncing on her patent leather heels. 

Unable to guess what it could be, Bellamy opened the drawstrings and turned the bag upside down. Something small, cool, and metallic fell into his hands.

It was a plain, thin but sturdy silver chain. Something familiar dangled from the end of it.

A burnished gold ring with a long, oval-cut ruby set vertically in the center, flanked by two tiny pearls. 

It was his mother’s ring.

“O, no. It’s you that should keep this. I’m sure she would have wanted you to have it-”

“No, Bellamy. _You_ ought to have it. Wear the chain, keep it on you, think of mother and of me when you’re away. It would make me happy.” She smiled at him, her eyes a bit watery. “Besides, I have her pearl earrings, and you know I always liked those more.”

Bellamy looped the chain over his neck, letting the ring fall next to his metal army-issued ID tags. The strangest contrast.

“I’ll treasure it,” he promised, pulling his sister into a hug. “I swear.”

“I know you will, big brother,” she said, stepping back slightly to look at him. “That’s why I’m giving it to you.”

Bellamy glanced around the room as his sister sighed, repinning her falling hair.

A letter on the vanity caught his eye.

It was addressed to his sister.

The return address listed at the top was for a soldier. A name that Bellamy had never heard before.

“Octavia,” he said in a low voice. “What is this?”

He held up the letter, and she froze, mid-turn. 

“Don’t fly off the handle, Bellamy,” she said frantically. “Let me explain.”

“I’d very much like you to right now,” he said, his mind in chaos. Who was Lincoln? Where had they met? Were they corresponding in secret? And why hadn’t she told him?

Octavia cleared her throat. “Lincoln and I met at the war office, six months ago,” she began. “Harper and I had been volunteering there in Toronto, and I kept seeing him. And he kept seeing me, I suppose. He’s a soft-spoken man, but he still worked up the courage to ask our supervisor if he could be introduced to me. The old biddy loves a little bit of scandal, so she agreed. We’ve been courting ever since. Chaperoned, of course. The McIntyres have met him and they entirely approve. Bellamy, he’s the sweetest man.” Octavia’s hands were clasped in front of her, her cheeks flushed, her eyes defiant.

Bellamy could see this was a fight he’d already lost.

“Why didn’t you tell me, O? I’m the one that’s supposed to be looking after you.” He scrubbed his hand down his face tiredly.

“You kind of had bigger things to worry about,” she confessed. “Besides, I didn’t want to worry you. I knew you’d imagine the worst, even when the reality of the situation was very much the best.”

“Has he asked for your hand?” Bellamy asked suddenly, wondering if he was already losing his sister while he’d been away at the western front. 

“Not quite, but I have reason to believe he will the next time he’s home on leave,” she said, her voice thick. 

She was in love with him.

Bellamy could see it plain as the nose on her face. 

“You love him,” he stated, exhaling.

“So much,” she confirmed, her smile tremulous.

“I just wish you’d told me, O,” Bellamy said plaintively. It felt as if the war was sucking his life away, forcing him to watch it pass by as he dug his heels into the cold French mud. “You know I just want you to be safe, and happy.”

“And I will be with him,” Octavia said fervently. “I can’t wait for this wretched war to end so the two of you can meet. You’ll like him. I’m absolutely sure of it.”

“That’s good to hear,” he said mildly, hoping she was right. “Just keep me updated on your news, all right?” 

“Of course,” she nodded, rushing forward to hug him again. “I’m sorry I kept it from you.”

He squeezed her shoulders. “It’s all right. Just never forget that I love you, little sister.”

“And I love you,” she replied, a smile in her voice.

… 

“Clarke, honey, aren’t you going to eat your Christmas pudding? That’s always been your favorite part of the meal.”

Clarke had been pushing the pudding around in her bowl, rarely taking a bite. True, it had been her favorite before. But now, it felt almost sickly sweet in her mouth. For months, the only sugar she’d had had been the occasional bit of chocolate, and even that had been under-sweetened thanks to sugar rationing. She wasn’t sure she could still stomach the rich dessert that was currently sitting in front of her.

“I’m just full,” Clarke said weakly. “I’m not used to such nice food. Or so much of it.”

“You do look terribly thin,” her mother observed, eyeing her daughter’s hollow cheeks. “Do they not feed you in the trenches?”

“They do as much as they’re able,” Clarke reassured her. 

She didn’t mention how hard it was to work up an appetite after long days of watching men bleed out and die in gory agony. 

“You haven’t mentioned much about the officer chaperoning you,” her mother murmured, changing the track of the conversation. “What was his name again? Captain Barnes?”

“Blake,” Clarke corrected. For some reason, talking about Bellamy in front of her mother felt wrong, uncomfortable.

The dynamic between her and Bellamy felt intensely personal and private, somehow. Talking about him felt like carving a piece of her soul out and putting it on display for all to see. 

“Captain Blake, yes. What’s he like? Does he look after you?”

“He looks after the whole unit. More than most captains do, I think. He’s a good man.” Clarke decided that her mother didn’t need to know that he was only 23 years old, and had one of the most beautiful faces she’d ever seen on a boy. 

“That’s reassuring to hear, if nothing else. They keep you away from the front lines, though, do they not?”

“They do,” Clarke lied. 

The last thing she needed was her mother losing sleep over what she was doing overseas. She had enough on her plate, and Clarke was losing enough sleep over it for the both of them. 

“As they should,” her mother agreed. “Come. Let’s go sit by the fire. Hannah will clear this away later.”

Hannah was their lone servant, the only one left after they’d made the move from the house in Seabright to the flat here in downtown Halifax. She did the cooking and the cleaning there five days a week.

Clarke felt intensely guilty that her mother had apparently called her in on Christmas night.

Tired, she walked toward the plush sofa in the sitting room that had been pushed closer to the fire. Halifax winters were brutal. As Clarke wiggled her toes inside her shoes, trying to warm them up, she wondered how she’d forgotten. 

“How has work been at the hospital?” Clarke asked, watching her mother carefully arrange her skirts as she sat on the loveseat opposite her daughter.

“Busier than ever, to be truthful,” she answered. “The amount of boys sent home from the front is astonishing. And to think, the number that we must be churning out to replace them. And the number of them that never make it home at all. It’s truly horrific to think about.”

Clarke murmured wordlessly in agreement. She found, uncomfortably, that she’d run out of things to talk about.

At least, things she _wanted_ to talk about. 

Her mother didn’t need to know about the men Clarke had stitched back together, or the ones she’d held in her hands as she watched them die.

Her mother didn’t need to know, and Clarke didn’t want to speak the words out loud to tell her. 

“Darling, why don’t you try on the new gown I got you? Let’s see how it looks.” Her mother sat back, smiling proudly. 

Clarke’s shoulders slumped. She was so tired after parading through a whole day full of Christmas, trying to pretend like everything was still normal.

“Maybe tomorrow, if that’s all right? I’m all worn out from the festivities right now, I think,” Clarke said apologetically. 

Besides, she didn’t want her mother to see that, given that she likely used Clarke’s old measurements from last winter, the dress probably wouldn’t fit her current body so well. 

“Of course, honey. You know what? You haven’t told me about any of the handsome soldiers. Anyone in particular caught your eye? You better be behaving properly,” she tacked on, admonishing her daughter.

Had anyone caught her eye?

No, not like that, Clarke thought.

Nothing so casual as what her mother was suggesting.

There didn’t seem to be a place for that in one’s mind in the trenches, anyhow.

Clarke shook her head. “Don’t worry. Nothing improper.” Except for sharing a bedroom in a dugout with a man for the last seven months. “No time for that, not at all.”

“You don’t have to go back, you know.”

And there it was.

Her mother pushed on, quite determined. “You’re not conscripted, Clarke. You can stay here. Ask for a hospital transfer. I’m sure they’d be more than happy to have you.” Her mother sighed. “There’s no need for you to be down in the dirt over there in France, darling.”

Clarke blinked rapidly. It hadn’t really occurred to her that transferring assignments was a thing that she could do. 

But, without having to think about it very much at all, she knew she didn’t want to.

She hated being in the trenches. She hated watching men die, day in, day out, fearing for her life, and for those of all the boys around her. She hated constantly being filthy, scared, and hungry.

But she could never abandon the unit. She was trained to be there, trained to heal them, to even save them, sometimes.

She couldn’t abandon what she’d begun. She was with them. To the end of everything. 

And she couldn’t leave Bellamy.

Walking away from him now would feel like nothing short of a betrayal. 

There was a link between them that had been forged in fire ever since they’d jumped off that sinking ocean liner together.

They could do this without each other, perhaps, but she knew that neither of them wanted to.

And so she would go back.

Of course she would go back.

“Mother, I can’t just abandon my unit. They need me. And besides, it would feel wrong to do it now. I want to see this through until the end.” Clarke nodded, twisting her hands together in her lap. “You’ve seen those boys in the hospital, every day. Surely you can understand how I feel.”

Her mother’s eyes glistened. “I do, Clarke. I understand. And I’m proud of how brave you are, honey.” The lines around her mouth crinkled as she wiped away a tear. “But just now, I wish your father and I had raised a more selfish daughter.”

“Oh, mom,” Clarke sighed, crossing the room to wrap her arms around her mother’s thin shoulders. “I’ll be all right. I’ll be back, no matter what. The moment this is all over. And then I’ll be right here with you, every day.”

Her mother sniffled, hugging Clarke back, folding her into a tight embrace.

“I’d count the days if I knew the number,” she whispered, clinging to her only child. 

… 

The five days of furlough expired both more quickly and more slowly than any of the members of Company B had expected, and hastily, they all began to make their way back to the crowded Halifax harbor. 

Clarke arrived a bit early, and alone. Her mother had been called in to the hospital a few hours prior. Too many surgeries were scheduled, and they needed more nurses on hand.

So Clarke had packed up her meager belongings in their empty flat, secretly leaving her new gown in her dresser drawer and hoping her mother wouldn’t think to look there for the foreseeable future.

Clarke saw no need in bringing it. As beautiful as it was, she couldn’t imagine wearing the delicate, pale pink-and-white lace dress anywhere within a hundred miles of the war front. 

To her surprise, Bellamy was already there, and looked to be the only one from the unit who’d already arrived. 

“Reporting for duty, Captain Blake, sir,” she called out to his turned back, her voice light, teasing.

He turned, his eyes searching the throng of people for her. When their eyes met, he smiled. His expression was oddly laced with something that looked like relief.

“Clarke,” he murmured in his low, gravelly voice. Clarke realized briefly how much she’d missed it. Five whole days without Bellamy was really quite unprecedented at this point in her life. 

“I’m glad you came,” he said, playfully chucking the tip of her pink, windburned nose with the side of his finger.

Clarke’s stomach flipped strangely at the gesture. “Why do you sound so surprised?” She asked.

He gave her a sidelong glance as he turned to watch the crowds stream past. 

“Honestly, Clarke? I wasn’t sure that you’d come back.”

Clarke frowned. “You sound like my mother. Why does everyone keep saying that?” She huffed. Did no one have any faith in her? 

“I wouldn’t have blamed you at all. You’ve seen hell since you left here in May. And, unlike the rest of us, you’re not contractually obligated to stay. Everyone knows nurses hold voluntary positions. You could easily just transfer back here, where you’d be safe. Or even quit altogether, if you felt like you’d had enough.”

Clarke got the feeling that Bellamy was aiming for lightness in his voice, but falling quite short.

“Hell’s bells,” she swore. “You know, I’m really quite miffed that everyone keeps thinking I’d give up. I _wouldn’t._ I’m here to stay, until this is all over, or if it kills me, if god so wills it.”

“Don’t say that,” he interrupted, his voice cracking.

“Well, it’s true,” she said, nodding to herself. She turned to the side as well, her shoulder near his, but facing the opposite direction, watching the weak, dying winter sun fade into the horizon.

“I’d never leave you, Bellamy,” she continued quietly. “Not you, or any of the other boys out there with us. That’s not who I am.”

A moment of silence passed between them as he said nothing. Curious, she turned to look at him.

He’d already turned to her. Already looking. Wordlessly, he reached up to lift a finger under a stray piece of hair at her temple, tucking it gently back into her pinned-up braid. His finger grazed against the shell of her ear, and a strange, hot, hollow feeling seized her belly. 

“Well, aren’t you two a sight for sore eyes,” Finn’s voice boomed, slicing through the air around Clarke and Bellamy and shattering the moment. 

The two of them stepped away from each other as if scalded.

Finn rolled his eyes. “I swear, Moncton is dull as tombs during Christmas. Everyone tucked inside their little homes to keep warm. No one out on the streets to stop and chat with at all. No men at the pubs to share a drink with, either. Can’t say I’m glad to be going back, but I can say I’m glad to be leaving Moncton.”

Clarke’s eyes frantically darted around the docks as she looked anywhere but toward Bellamy, who was similarly silent.

“Good god, what’s gotten into you two?” Finn demanded. “I know the food on the troopships is terrible, but it’s still better than what we’ll be having in the trenches. Cheer up, you two.” He patted both their arms. 

Within minutes, Monty and Jasper had arrived, fresh from Charlottetown.

“Is your sister and her friend here?” Jasper asked, glancing around. “PEI is all good and well, but there sure aren’t as many pretty girls there as I’d like.”

Monty smacked his arm, but looked similarly disappointed to realize the girls’ absence. 

“How was everyone’s Christmas?” Monty asked politely, smiling at them all. 

The group chattered for a while, but the conversation ground to a halt as the troopship blew its horn, summoning all of the soldiers aboard. 

Suddenly much more quiet, the furloughed members of Company B fell in line, somberly trekking back up the gangway they’d come down just five days ago. 

As the sight of the ship loomed nearer, so did the weight of the realization that they were going back.

Back to the front.

Back to the wet, to the cold, to wondering every day if this will be the day that you die. If it will be the day that the soldier next to you, one that you’ve been friends with for months, dies instead of you. 

All heads hung low as they disappeared into the decks of the cold steel ship.

… 

“Monty, are you seriously already writing a letter to your Mother? You just left her six hours ago!” Finn teased, watching Monty secretively hover over a half-filled sheet of paper from the table they’d all collapsed at in the mess hall. 

“It’s not to my mother,” Monty scowled, his writing hand hovering over the letter. 

“Oh, is it a secret sweetheart, then?” Finn waggled his eyebrows.

“Monty, you didn’t say anything to me about a _girl,_ ” Jasper teased, leaning over to try and read the letter heading. 

Jasper fell silent for a moment before leaning back.

“Harper gave you permission to write to her?” He said dully, folding his thin arms across his chest.

“She did,” Monty said calmly, an edge of defensiveness lacing his voice.

Jasper threw up his hands. “How? And of course Octavia wouldn’t even look at me.”

Bellamy leaned forward. “I actually found out over Christmas that my sister is spoken for,” he informed the crestfallen private. 

Jasper sighed deeply, worry lines creasing around his mouth. He sat back, no longer seeming interested in any conversation.

Bellamy frowned. Jasper seemed to be taking this harder than he’d expected, especially over a girl he’d only known for the length of an afternoon.

Next to him, Clarke got to her feet. “I’m going to get my canteen so I can refill it before lights out,” she announced. “I’ll be right back.” 

“Be careful,” Bellamy heard himself saying, knee-jerk. 

“I always am,” she replied, heading for the exit. 

“How was Charlottetown, Monty?” Bellamy asked.

Monty finished signing his letter, a moony expression on his face. He smiled at the question. “Quaint as ever, and lovely as ever. I know Jasper here thinks it’s dull, but I’ll never tire of the rolling fields and the red clay cliffs. Did you get to explore Halifax very much while you were there?”

“Only a little,” Bellamy answered, his mind wandering toward the memory of Clarke’s crumbling family home, of the crash of the sea there, of the warmth of her head in his lap as she slept. Of the book she’d given him, which had now been read, and was tucked securely into his pack. 

“It’s charming, the bay, but I can’t stand how cold-”

Somewhere far down the hallway, a high-pitched shout echoed across the steel-bolted corridor.

_Clarke._

Bellamy leapt up from his chair and broke into a run.

His heart pounded wildly in his chest as he rushed down the length of the cramped, dim corridor. 

As he hustled around a corner, he could see Clarke backed against the wall behind two men.

_No._

He grabbed one of the soldiers by the back of his overcoat and yanked, throwing him to the ground.

The other stood hunched over, his nose bleeding profusely as he swore.

Clarke stood away from him, her raised knuckles pink and swollen, her expression anger-infused shock.

A swell of pride bloomed in Bellamy’s chest.

“They cornered me,” she spluttered, her chest heaving with adrenaline. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“I’ll be reporting both of them to their commanding officers,” Bellamy barked, watching them scramble away and out of sight. His stomach churned with something more than just seasickness.

“You did good,” he huffed out, short of breath himself. He dropped a hand on her shoulder in relief as the two of them breathed heavily, coming down from the jolts of adrenaline rushing in their blood.

“Are you all right?” He asked, realizing in horror that something more could have happened before he’d gotten her in his line of sight.

She nodded. “Just a little shaken up. And my hand hurts. Guess I didn’t remember the punching lessons my dad used to give me well enough,” she wheezed, cradling her wrist with her other hand. 

“Let me see,” he asked, gesturing to her hand. She held it out gingerly. He grasped her fingers as lightly as possible, bringing her knuckles up to study them. They were indeed swollen, and a bruise was already forming across them, but thankfully, nothing looked dislocated or broken.

Relieved, he drew her hand against his chest, pressing the back of it next to his heart. 

“I should have gone with you,” he said apologetically, angry at himself.

He really should have known better. How could he have been so thoughtless?

This was Clarke.

He never wanted to leave anything with her up to chance where he could help it.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, only faintly aware of the drum of his heart through his uniform against her hand.

She shook her head. “It’s not your fault. I suppose being a soldier doesn’t always make you a proper man,” she said bitterly, her fingers curling around his briefly before she pulled them away.

Bellamy’s heart thumped erratically at the loss of her touch.

“Wait,” he said. “Come back with me to the bunks for a minute, all right?”

Her expression was curious, but she nodded, following him back to their corner of the sleeping quarters. 

“I was going to give this to you back in the trenches, but I suppose it would be just as proper to do so now,” he said, rifling through his pack. “I picked it up at the army supply depot for you. I think it’s necessary, at this point.”

Finding the slim bundle of cloth he was looking for, he grabbed it carefully and held it out to her.

Her questioning gaze lingered on him as she took it. 

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” she said uncertainly.

“Well, open it. It’s not exactly a traditional Christmas gift. Not nearly as nice as the book you gave me, anyways. Be careful, though.”

Clarke slowly unfolded the swaths of cloth and removed the sheath to reveal a shiny steel trench knife, with brass knuckles built into the short handle. 

“To keep me safe,” she murmured, staring down at it.

He clasped his hands behind his back, unsure of what to do with them. “The army won’t issue nurses a weapon, so I’m giving you one myself.”

She slipped her fingers into the loops of the handle, testing the knife’s weight. 

“How unladylike is it that I’m glad to have this?” She asked, her voice a little lighter than before. 

Bellamy laughed, happy she wasn’t upset at what some would view as a rather brutish gift. But then, it was Clarke. She’d seen enough to understand why she ought to have it. 

“I’m glad you are,” he replied. 

“Thank you, Bellamy,” she said quietly, seriously. “I’ll feel better for having it.”

“Then I only wish I’d thought of it sooner.”

Before he could process what was happening, he saw her face rise to his, felt her warm lips press against his cheek for the briefest of moments. 

“I’ll carry it with me always,” she said, her eyes lingering on his for another moment. Abruptly, she turned away, attaching the loop on the sheath to the thin belt that cinched the sweater at her waist.

Bellamy clenched his fists to keep himself from touching the spot on his cheek that her lips had touched.

“Let’s go back,” she said breezily, her back still to him. “I still never got to refill my canteen.”

… 

Seven days later, when the troopship docked at Le Havre, the furloughed members of Company B received word that their unit had been relocated some 300 kilometers southeast, by the border, near a small city called Verdun, to take part in preparations for an impending battle there. 

They took their orders silently, boarding a train that rattled violently along its tracks, taking them closer and closer to the front lines once again. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about Murphy. He had to go to fit the narrative, and unfortunately he won't be the only one. Even so, I hope you're still enjoying, and if you're reading this, thanks for sticking around! Hopefully I'll be back with another chapter soon.


	3. Of Loved Ones and Losing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Bellamy’s eyes shifted back to Clarke, who almost looked to be swaying on her feet. Her uniform, which was stitched from blue and white cloth, now appeared almost entirely red and brown, completely ruined with the blood and dirt of the battlefield. It was on her face, her neck, her hands as well. 
> 
> His princess and her crown of blood.
> 
> The sight of her would frighten him if he didn’t know her, didn’t care for her so deeply." 
> 
> ///
> 
> The war rages on, and Bellamy and Clarke cling tighter to each other as everyone else starts slipping through their fingers.

* * *

_in which a soldier goes missing, the snow is stained red, and the body count rises._

* * *

_**April, 1916** _

The Battle of Verdun had been raging for two months, with no end in sight. 

Endless artillery fire echoed across the trenches. It was so loud, so constant, that only silence became remarkable or noteworthy, and not sound. 

Some days were better than others. 

Clarke ran from soldier to soldier, assessing them, calling for men to carry the badly wounded away, fixing the mild injuries up herself.

Closing the eyes of the corpses when she needed to.

The sun was beginning to set over another relentless, bloody spring day of battle.

At least, spring in name. Clarke couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen anything green, or heard the morning chirps of birdsong.

A torrent of pebbles and dirt showered from overhead, and Clarke clutched at the chinstrap of her helmet, pulling it down tighter over her head. 

Covered in filth and horribly out of breath, Monty and Jasper descended from above, rolling down into the trench.

“Jasper! Monty! Thank god,” Clarke yelled over the booming artillery fire. “The unit’s been gone since sunrise. I’ve been so worried.”

“We’re getting absolutely _walloped,_ ” Jasper wheezed, bending over and bracing his hands against his thighs. “And _we’re_ a relief division. No telling what’s happening to the French up there. As for us, we’ve been ordered to fall back.”

More members of Company B began sliding and rolling back down into the trenches. So many of them with names Clarke didn’t even know yet.

Men were dying and being replaced so quickly that it was getting impossible to keep up.

Next to her, Bellamy slid down a stack of sandbags, his face covered in soot and streaked with sweat.

Clarke’s heart skipped a beat in relief.

Her only constant these days – besides artillery fire, and death – was Bellamy coming back to her.

She didn’t want to imagine a day without that. 

“I’m glad you’re all right,” she said, placing a hand on his arm as she looked around distractedly, watching the other men continue to file back in. 

He opened his mouth to say something, but they were interrupted by one of the newer privates tumbling down in between them, scrambling to his feet and looking about frantically. He gasped in relief when he realized who he was standing next to. 

“Captain Blake,” he wheezed, huffing. “Captain, Private Collins was hit. Saw it out of the corner of my eye.”

Bellamy grimaced. “Where is he?” He demanded. 

“Fell only about ten yards from this t-trench,” the private stuttered. “I didn’t see much, but he ain’t behind me.”

Clarkes nerves prickled. They couldn’t just leave him up there.

Finn annoyed her, to be sure, but he was a member of their unit, and one of the few left that was there with her at the start. 

Unwanted flirtatious remarks aside, he also happened to be a pretty good soldier. 

“We have to help him,” Clarke shouted.

She had no idea how badly he’d been hurt.

This time it was she who needed to climb above the trenches. 

“I’m going,” she announced, clambering up the stack of sandbags before she could think twice; before anyone could stop her. 

She heard shouts of her name below as she struggled to her feet above ground, coughing in the waves of smoke and flying, dislodged earth.

Squinting beneath the brim of her helmet, she scoured her line of sight for Finn, her blood pumping wildly in her veins. 

_There he was_.

Only ten yards away, Finn lay spread-eagle on the ground, his coat blooming with blood from his collar to his belt. 

Clarke’s chest whined with panic as she rushed toward him. 

She was so focused on Finn that she didn’t see the barbed wire.

She gasped at the sharp bite of metal through her skirt and into her thigh and, in a knee-jerk reaction, she reached down with both hands to swat whatever had pinched her away.

Only when the barbed wire sliced mercilessly into her open hands did she recognize what it was.

Hot blood ran in rivulets down her palm, but that didn’t matter right now.

Finn mattered right now.

Gasping, she collapsed on the ground next to him.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said faintly, blood pooling in one corner of his mouth. 

Ignoring it, she grasped at his coat, unbuttoning it as fast as she could, wincing at the pain it caused her shredded hands.

His upper body was in ruins.

Fragments of a shell had torn into his skin, cutting deeper than was survivable. A jagged piece was crookedly embedded in the flesh and muscle just over his heart – probably in the actual organ, as well. Another piece had sliced a great rip over his ribcage, exposing fractured bone and a part of a lacerated lung. 

Finn was going to die a slow, painful death up here, all alone.

Tears stung Clarke’s eyes as she tried to soothe him. 

“You’re going to be just fine,” she murmured, her voice thick and watery. 

“You don’t have to lie,” he said, smiling feebly, his teeth tinged with his own blood. 

In a devastating moment of epiphany, Clarke realized that there was only one way to keep him from suffering up here for hours.

He was too injured to move or to be moved.

He was also too injured to have any chance left at survival.

Her torn hands shaking, she reached for the trench knife at her waist.

“I’m so sorry, Finn,” she sniffled, an ugly, wet sniffle. “I’ll write to your family, all right? Tell them how brave you were.”

“Do what you have to,” he said, finally grave, his voice nearly inaudible. “Just do it.”

Her tears dripped on to his dirty face as she leaned down to kiss his cheek.

“Thanks, princess,” he whispered, and she slid her blade deep into the artery in his neck.

It only took seconds for his spirit to depart, but to Clarke, it felt like hours.

And just like that, Clarke had killed a second soldier.

This time, one of her own.

She cried even harder, her own precarious position forgotten.

“Clarke, what are you doing?” Bellamy’s shout reached her as he hunched down, darting over the ground toward her.

He stopped when he saw the body in front of her, and the bloodied blade in her bloodied hand.

“He was going to suffer for hours,” she cried out, her hands still shaking as a shell exploded considerably nearer to them than others had before. “He couldn’t be moved. It w-was quick.”

She saw Bellamy swallow hard, a shadow passing over his face. “You did the right thing,” he said, urgency still lacing his voice. “But you have to get back down, right now, all right? Now,” he repeated, beckoning her toward him with a wave of his hand. 

He was right.

She couldn’t help anyone else if she died up here, too.

Trembling, she rose up to a crouch, taking his outstretched hand as he rushed them back down into the safety of the trench.

“Someone will get his body when there’s a ceasefire,” he tried to reassure her, his own voice sounding a bit shaken.

“I told him I’d write to his family,” she whispered numbly. The heads of soldiers around her turned, taking in the scene in front of them. Realization began to dawn on their faces.

“Finn’s gone,” Jasper said dully, his voice a flat, void tone. 

Clarke could only nod in response.

“And so another one bites the dust,” he said bitterly, turning on his heel and walking away.

Bellamy watched him go for a second before coming back to himself. “All right, everyone, you heard the orders. Fall back. Get back to where we bunked down in the middle trenches last night immediately. Look out for each other.”

Bellamy wiped sweat from his brow as he watched them tiredly fall in line, their shadows growing longer with the rapidly disappearing sun. 

Clarke was so stupefied that she hadn’t realized Bellamy was still clutching her hand. Self-conscious, she pulled it away. 

Frowning, he lifted his own hand. It was streaked with Clarke’s blood.

“Clarke, what…?” He reached down for her wrist, dragging her palm up for inspection.

Clarke was suddenly thrown back to the day they’d first met, in the first class suites of the _Lusitania._ Bellamy had grabbed her hands just like this, studying them, condemning their lack of blemish or callus, telling her she’d never done a day’s hard work in her life. 

It felt like centuries ago now.

“I didn’t see the barbed wire,” she grimaced. “It got my leg, too.”

“We’ll fix it,” he said, his voice rough. “It’s Company B’s turn to rest.”

They followed the rest of their men back for over a mile, trudging along the duckboards to the middle trenches, which were the designated bunker spots for the relief division. 

On the walk back, Clarke felt as if her ears, her mouth, her brain had been stuffed with cotton. Like there was a muffling, inexplicable buffer between her and the world, numbing her to any sounds, to any thoughts, to any pain. It was the strangest feeling. 

“Try to get a few hours of sleep,” Bellamy ordered his men before he disappeared into the officer’s dugout he and Clarke had been occupying for the last week. 

Mindlessly, she followed.

“Sit on the table,” he ordered, taking her medic bag from her shoulder and sifting through it.

She complied, taking a seat on the rickety wooden table that had been shoved into the corner. She’d hardly realized how dark the dugout was until Bellamy lit one of the hanging lamps. Annoyed at the weight of her helmet sticking to her hair, she undid the chin strap and cast it aside.

“What happened to him, Clarke?” He finally asked, slowly walking toward her with medical supplies in his hands.

“Shell fragments,” Clarke replied dully. “Pierced heart, lacerated lung, shattered ribs. There was zero chance of recovery.”

In her ears, the words sounded detached, like they’d been spoken by someone else. 

“You did the right thing,” he said again, quietly, as he popped open a vial of disinfectant. “But I’m sorry that you had to.”

“Occupational hazard,” she replied, her voice straining in her throat. 

Gently, Bellamy took her hands in his, turning them face-up, his fingers gently brushing the backs of her knuckles. 

“God, Clarke, your hands are shredded,” he muttered, shaking his head.

Clarke winced as the disinfectant ran into the open wounds on her palms. “It seems like a small price to pay,” she said, her voice still cool somehow. 

As he wound clean bandages around her hands, her eyes settled on his face, mindlessly wondering if it was possible to count the freckles that lurked under the dirt dusting his cheeks.

After tying them off, he stepped back, tossing his helmet back toward his pack and unbuttoning his mud-caked coat. 

“It’s too warm out to be spring,” he grumbled, tossing his coat aside as well.

Clarke frowned faintly. It didn’t feel particularly warm to her.

“Roll up your skirt,” he asked suddenly, going back to pull more supplies from her medic bag.

“What?” Clarke asked. His question had ripped her abruptly out of the fog in her head.

“Your leg. You said the wire cut you there, too.”

Clarke cleared her throat. “Don’t fret over that one. I can do it myself, later.”

Bellamy gave her a withering look. “You really can’t,” he corrected. “Your hands are far too cut up to do any stitching tonight.”

“Who said it even needs stitches?” She retorted.

Bellamy’s mouth twisted. “It’s bad enough to have bled through your uniform,” he said gently, nodding at her dress.

Clarke looked down. Sure enough, there was an inky-red blot soaking through to her nurse apron, just about where she’d first felt the sting of the wire. 

About two inches above the knee, just inside her thigh.

A part of a woman’s leg that a man wasn’t allowed to see unless he was married to her. 

Clarke swallowed thickly.

He was right that her hands were too lacerated to do any stitching right now.

And all of the other medics nearby. . .were men.

But Bellamy was the man she trusted the most. 

“Do you know how to stitch?” She asked reluctantly, the question her own way of saying she relented.

Bellamy’s shoulders relaxed. “I do, actually. My mother taught me when I was young.”

Clarke nodded. “Well, be careful. I’m not a shirtsleeve or a stocking.”

He half-smiled. “Believe me, I know.”

Suddenly, Clarke didn’t want to look at her filthy, ruined skirt anymore, or the sleeves of her dress that were coated with Finn’s blood.

She’d undressed to her underthings in front of him once before, when he’d helped re-lace her corset.

If she’d done it once, she didn’t see why anything bad would happen for doing it a second time. 

“Just let me get out of this,” she muttered. “All of a sudden I feel quite revolted by it. It reeks of blood,” she grimaced, turning away from him as she hastily untied her apron and cast it aside. Her fingers struggled with the buttons down the front of her dress, but she _certainly_ wasn’t going to ask for his help with that. 

Down to her chemise, knee-length drawers, and over-the-knee stockings, she hoisted herself back up onto the table and looked down. The barbed wire had ripped through both her stockings and her underthings, leaving a view of a particularly nasty crooked gash on the inside of her thigh.

“Just lovely,” she said dryly, taking in the damage. 

“We’ll have you fixed up in no time,” he reassured her, his voice cracking. 

He was nervous, then.

 _What was it that affected him?_ She wondered. Was it the thought of stitching her leg, or the fact that she was sitting in front of him, wearing much less than a lady in any other circumstance should be?

She wouldn’t blame him if it was both.

Both of those things made her nervous, too.

“You really have to watch out for those barbs next time,” he shook his head as he studied the wound. “Actually, forget that. Don’t let there be a next time up there, all right?” He asked earnestly, his hand falling gently onto her knee.

The touch made her heartbeat spike as she nodded in assent. 

Before her, Bellamy dropped to one knee to get at eye level with the wound he’d be stitching. 

_This is so wildly, wildly inappropriate,_ Clarke thought to herself, staring down at the top of his messy head of curls.

And yet, she didn’t stop him. She didn’t want to stop him. 

He carefully rolled down her ripped stocking, pushing it over her knee and down a few more inches. 

Her breathing grew shallow as he nudged up the thin cotton of her drawers, his thumb brushing the bare skin inside her thigh. 

Clarke was furious at how much her body was betraying her in the moment. 

The man was about to shove a needle into her skin to stitch a wound, for christ’s sake. That was all that this was. But then his hand was moving further atop her leg, his thumb pressing down inside her thigh to hold the skin taut, and it was all she could do to keep her eyes from rolling back into her head.

It was unfair, the effect he could have on her. 

“This is definitely going to sting a bit,” he murmured as he swabbed iodine over the gash.

He’d been right. Clarke bit the inside of her cheek to stop from gasping at the chemical-y burn that flared along the side of her leg. 

Bellamy threaded the needle, but then hesitated. “Are you sure you want me to do this? I–”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “You’ll what? Go get Jackson, the medic from the unit over? Please. Better you than anyone else other than myself,” she huffed. 

“Your words, not mine,” he said with a grimace. “Sorry in advance for this.”

His large, warm hand stayed steady, wrapped around her leg, as the other carefully, meticulously closed the wound with neat, small stitches.

His mother had apparently been a good teacher. 

Just as Clarke was sure that the pain of the needle lacing through her skin had subdued any. . . _unhelpful_ feelings coursing through her, Bellamy finished, placing the needle carefully next to him on one of the mismatched chairs. His hand slowly moved back down toward her knee, his fingertips trailing lightly against her skin. 

“Hopefully not too bad for an amateur,” he said quietly, the pad of his thumb tracing circles inside of her knee. 

Oh, _god._

“Not so bad,” she agreed, alarmed at how breathy her voice had come out. 

Did he _know_ what he was doing to her? Surely, he must know.

He braced his hands on either side of her as he lifted himself up off his knee. Suddenly, his face was very close to hers, her body caged between his arms as he leaned forward.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” He asked softly, his dark eyes darting gently between hers. 

Her heart was racing now. She allowed her own gaze to flicker to his lips, just for a fraction of a second.

She merely nodded, not trusting herself to speak. 

“It’s all right not to be,” he said quietly, the deep rumble of his voice catching in his throat. 

His eyes stayed on hers, watching her face intently. 

Was he going to kiss her?

Her heart was beating so wildly now that she was sure it would give out any second. 

She realized, suddenly, that she wanted him to.

“It helps, to have you here with me,” she whispered back, so quietly she wasn’t sure she’d actually spoken. 

“Clarke-”

A deafening explosion outside stopped his words dead in their tracks, shaking the walls of the dugout and rattling dirt loose from its ceiling.

Startled, they grabbed for each other, Clarke’s hands hurting her as she gripped Bellamy’s shoulders, and his hands clutching tightly at her waist. 

They both recognized the sound. 

It was a cannon blast, one of thousands they’d heard before. 

It was just a bit closer than normal.

Otherwise, business as usual.

Their lungs heaved in their chests as their brains caught up with what had happened, as well as the fact that they were likely still safe for now. 

“We’re safe,” Bellamy panted, working to catch his breath. Gingerly, he released her, stepping back a few paces. “It’s fine.”

His demeanor changed, as if the cannon fire had shaken him back into being an officer and not just Bellamy. 

He looked away from her. “You should get dressed. The sun’s gone down, and the nights have been chilly. We can’t have you catching cold,” he said stiffly. 

Clarke, though still rattled by the interruption, found herself disappointed at the distance currently between them.

“I’ll go find us some dinner rations, all right?” He spoke again, more warmly this time. “Be right back.”

He disappeared through the curtain in the doorway. 

Clarke looked down at her bandaged hands, then at the bloodied uniform she’d cast to the floor next to her.

As if her mind and body had reached some kind of sensory overload – too much death, and too much life in too quick of a succession – she felt herself shutting down, cycling back into numbness.

All she felt was the faint burn of the torn skin beneath all her stitches and bandages. 

By the time Bellamy had returned with tinned beans and fresh water, she’d barely had the energy to eat. 

As she lay on her cot, her face to the wall, she thought she felt Bellamy’s hand brush over her hair before he ducked out to do his rounds, but she couldn’t be sure. 

Her sleep was miraculously dreamless. 

… 

_**October, 1916** _

“ _We’ll be back by nightfall, all right_?”

That’s what Bellamy had told Clarke two days ago when he’d left with Jasper, Monty, Miller, and a new private, Bernard, for a raid into the German trenches.

The battle for the Somme had been raging relentlessly since July. Heavy, heavy losses persisted, climbing into the hundreds of thousands. In the first day alone, the British army had nearly 60,000 casualties. The 1st Canadian division had been sent as relief back in September, over a month ago. The tanks had arrived around the same time they did – the great steel beasts, rolling slowly, clumsily across the battlefields, breaking down more often than not. 

They hadn’t helped as much as the Allied forces had hoped. Now, as the weather began to turn cold, Company B had been ushered into a movement to take back the ridges of the Somme – a movement that unfortunately yielded little result. Bellamy and his men, along with others from English and Scottish divisions, kept being sent on reconnaissance raids in hopes of one of them finally discovering information valuable enough to turn the tide. 

Company B’s raid hadn’t been as stealthy as they’d hoped. The Germans had been waiting for them, and they’d barely escaped with their lives. They’d fled to a nearby forest, but they were still deep in German territory, surrounded, and subjecting themselves to ambush with even the smallest of wrong moves. 

Bellamy had been scouting out the area, using the scope of his rifle, to try and determine when they’d have the best chance to make a run for it unobserved.

From what he could tell from yesterday, just after nightfall was their best bet. 

And here they were, on the second day. The sun had set less than an hour ago. 

“All right, move out,” he whispered to the four other soldiers who’d been hiding with him in the underbrush. “Make it quick.”

It was about a mile and a half to the front lines, to the closest Allied trenches. 

They had to be fast, and they had to be incredibly quiet. 

“Keep behind the larger tree trunks,” he whispered to them again, watching them dart through the forest ahead of them. 

They crouched, running as deftly as possible.

Bellamy estimated that they were about halfway there. 

“Just a few more minutes,” he said, his breath coming now in spurts thanks to stress and exertion.

The sound of gunfire shot through him like a bullet itself. 

“We’ve been seen!” Jasper panicked, picking up the pace, running more carelessly. 

“Go! Don’t look back, just _run_!” Bellamy’s voice was hoarse as he shepherded them forward through the trees. No man’s land was in sight now.

They were nearly there.

Bellamy’s heart pounded in his chest like a heavy, white-hot anvil.

The gunfire increased in nearness and in number.

“ _Go!_ ”

… 

Forsaking her evening rations, Clarke paced through the trenches, nervously glancing at the faces of Company B in case the raid had returned and she’d somehow missed them. 

She never would have missed them coming back in, but it had been two days now. Hope was beginning to override reason in her chest.

Bellamy had said they’d be back by nightfall.

Two days ago. 

She hated this.

She hated the waiting.

Women always seemed to be the ones stuck with doing it – even women sent to the front lines themselves couldn’t escape the burden of it.

As she turned on her heel to pace in the opposite direction, she heard a quiet commotion from the armored lookout post.

“The raid party is coming back in!”

Fear burst in her like a bubble, relief blossoming in its place. 

“Come on, get in, get in!” Some of the men helped pull the returning soldiers safely back down into the trench.

One by one, they slid down, covered in leaves and twigs and panting heavily.

First came Monty, wheezing, clutching at a stitch in his side, blood trickling from a gash over his eyebrow.

Next came Jasper and Bernard together, scrambling down the sandbags, swearing like sailors instead of soldiers. 

Miller slid in next, holding his helmet in place by the broken straps.

Miller, it turned out, was last.

Clarke watched the top of the trench wall for a moment, anxious.

“That’s. . .that’s the last of them,” the lookout called down uncertainly. 

“Where’s Bellamy?” Clarke demanded, rounding on the raid party.

They looked around askance at each other, still breathing heavily, as if they’d only just realized he wasn’t with them.

“He-” Monty gulped in a lungful of air. “He _was_ right behind us. I heard him. We got cornered in the forest and had to run back after it got dark. They still saw us. There was an ambush.”

“I stopped hearing his voice in that last quarter of a mile,” Miller muttered, his hands trembling as he gripped the straps of his pack. “I don’t think. . .I don’t think he got out of the forest.”

Clarke’s heart plummeted to her toes. “You think he’s dead?” She asked, her voice cracking up a few octaves.

“I don’t know,” Miller replied, bracing his hands on his thighs. “It all – it all happened so fast. He just isn’t here. That’s all we know for sure.”  
“ _Dammit,_ ” Jasper growled, punching a fist against a sandbag and wincing at the unexpected solidness of it. “He was _right_ there. We were so close!”

“M-maybe he just had to take cover,” Bernard offered, plucking a twig from his collar, grimacing.

“Bernie’s right,” Monty said, slowly regaining his breath. “No need to worry yet. Bellamy’s smart. He’s probably just hiding instead of taking his chances of getting shot. He _was_ at the back of the group.”

Clarke tried to keep calm.

Surely, he could come stumbling back in any time now.

She needed something to take her mind off it.

Anything. 

“Monty, you’re bleeding,” she said abruptly. “Come in and sit and I’ll fix that up.”

She turned on her heel, disappearing behind the dugout’s curtain door.

A moment later, Monty appeared, and she gestured to one of the chairs. He dutifully sank into it, removing his helmet.

“It doesn’t look deep enough to need stitches,” she observed, squinting at his brow. “I’ll just clean it and bandage it up.”

“Thanks,” Monty murmured. 

They sat in silence for a moment as she worked.

“The raid was a mess, Clarke,” he finally said. “They were expecting us. We learned nothing. Barely got out alive.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, genuinely.

“Bellamy was the one that figured out how to get us back to our side,” he continued. “We had to wait a day to figure out what time to run. He made sure of it all as much as he could.”

Clarke bit on her lower lip, drawing blood. A habit that seemed to stubbornly persist, once again.

“If anyone could make it back, Clarke, it’s him,” Monty reassured her. 

At least he sounded like he believed his own words. 

“He’ll be here soon. He’ll make it in.” Monty nodded to himself. He didn’t even wince as Clarke sterilized the wound.

“Of course he will,” she said, looking down. “I, for one, am not entertaining any thoughts that suggest otherwise.”

“Of course,” Monty agreed. 

He touched her shoulder kindly as he left the dugout. 

Clarke followed him out minutes later, making her evening rounds.

She did a trench foot check.

She even managed to get the raid party an extra evening ration of rum for their troubles. 

As the night deepened, she retreated into their dugout, dressing for bed.

Sitting up.

Waiting.

Still, he did not come. 

…

“If he isn’t back by the end of today, we have no choice but to list him as missing in action.”

Colonel Tremblay’s voice was tired, solemn as he spoke to Clarke from the other side of his strategy table. 

It had been five days since the rest of the raid party had come back. Seven since they’d gone out in the first place. Company B was being rotated off the front lines and back into the reserve tents for a few days – it was their turn to rest, far from the perils of the artillery fire. 

Before they’d marched out for the morning, Clarke, unable to quell her anxiety, had barged into the colonel’s dugout, begging for answers.

“Is something being done?” Clarke asked, her worry seeping into her voice. “Surely a search party can be sent after him?”

The colonel sadly shook his head. “It’s too big of a risk to send anyone out right now. Unfortunately, if Captain Blake is out there, he’s on his own.” 

Clarke’s bad habit flared as she bit her lip, worrying the old wound there that constantly reopened. 

The colonel’s shoulders fell slightly. “I know that’s not the answer you were looking for. I’m sorry it’s the only one I have to give,” he murmured, and to his credit, he sounded truly contrite. “Captain Blake is a smart soldier, Miss Griffin, and I’m sure he…”

Clarke didn’t catch the rest of his sentence. She’d already headed for the exit, ducking back into the trenches. 

She followed the rest of her downtrodden unit until they all reached the recreation tent. 

No one used the tents for recreation anymore. They occupied them solely to enjoy hot meals, and to sleep. A card game or two was sometimes played. 

No one had the heart for anything else.

Clarke’s heart beat sluggishly with dread. As tired as she was, she didn’t know if she could take a whole day of resting, with nothing to do but be alone with her thoughts. 

She’d already been losing sleep, losing her appetite. The dugout had felt wrong, less safe, without Bellamy sleeping on the other side of it. 

She’d tried spending more time with the soldiers in her unit, but even that left her more anxious than calmed or distracted. In the last few days, they’d began whispering, speculating, wondering who would be their new captain now that Bellamy was likely dead. 

She couldn’t tolerate it. 

Her heart rejected the idea that Bellamy wasn’t out there somewhere, alive, trying to come back.

He had to be. 

But with each passing day, his chances grew slimmer and slimmer. 

No, Clarke couldn’t let herself lay about all day to worry and wonder.

Instead, she tied her apron tighter and headed for the hospital tent to lend an extra helping hand.

It would help keep her mind off the possibility that she might never see the most important soldier in the world to her again. 

… 

“You’ve worked two hours past the shift you’ve volunteered for, darling,” one of the older nurses in the field hospital down near the recreation tents murmured, patting Clarke’s shoulder in a motherly sort of way. “Why don’t you go wash and join your unit in the rest and recreation area? It’s the last night there for the lot of you before you’re rotated back into the trenches, is it not?”

Clarke nodded stiffly, tiredly. 

Night had fallen hours ago, and now that she was finally standing still, Clarke could feel the chill in the air on her damp, sweaty skin. 

“Thank you,” she rasped, untying her apron with blood-caked fingers. 

“Have a quick bath in one of the communal rooms, why don’t you? Just be sure to lock the door, love,” the older nurse reminded her needlessly.

“I will,” Clarke answered listlessly, making her way to the reserve cabins. 

Bellamy had been gone for nine days now, entirely missing the unit’s reprieve at the back of the line. In the morning, they’d be rotated back in: ten days in reserve trenches, ten days in relief trenches in the middle, and then ten days at the front line. Repeat, ad nauseum. 

Or until you died. 

The perks of being fully out of the trenches for three days were countless: access to baths, to hot food and laundry, to almost guaranteed safety and relative quiet. Everyone slept in cabins or tents instead of shallow depressions carved out in trench walls. 

Given Company B’s lack of a captain to occupy his own small, but completely private captain’s hut, the boys had unanimously agreed to let Clarke take it instead. 

Despite the exhaustion permeating the very marrow of her bones at the end of each field hospital shift she’d taken on, she’d still laid awake every night, alert with the agonizing hope that this moment would be the one Bellamy would walk through the door. Or the next, or the next. 

But he hadn’t. 

It had been nine days. Bellamy Blake had been officially listed as missing in action. 

Clarke hoped that his sister hadn’t gotten word yet. That her suffering, at least, could be delayed for just a while. 

As Clarke walked back to her hut, she glanced down at herself in the fading lamplight.

The portion of her dress that had been covered by her apron was relatively unscathed, but her sleeves, her collar, and, she suspected, her face were smeared with the blood of dozens of soldiers, all horribly wounded, some dying as they’d reached for her from their hospital cots. 

Clarke thought back to July, to the horrible losses, the startling violence, worse than anything she’d seen yet. She remembered thinking then that surely, something this overwhelmingly fatal would not persist for very long; it _could_ not.

But it had. 

It had hardly let up at all. 

This battle, the Battle for the Somme, as the commanding officers had taken to calling it, felt every day as if it would be the end of the Allies. Clarke fought to look for hope and failed to find it as she nursed men from her own country, from England and Scotland and India and France too, fighting and failing to keep them well, to keep them alive. 

And losing Bellamy, on top of all of it – now she felt as if she had no spirit left to break.

Even so, she persisted. If she saved even a single life each day, it was worth it to carry on.

Snatching up her one other clean uniform and her now nearly-depleted bar of lavender soap from the small shelf near the door of her hut, she headed down for the bathing cabins.

She supposed she ought to be concerned for her own safety, as a lone woman out and about after dark, but somehow, she couldn’t quite bring herself to be fussed over it.

That, and she doubted a man would approach her romantically when she currently looked like she’d been dragged over a slaughterhouse floor. 

As Clarke washed quickly in the cold water behind the locked door, she paused as she scrubbed over the inside of her left knee.

There was a thin, crooked white scar there, healed smooth, but still visible in the lamplight. 

She closed her eyes, recalling the feeling of Bellamy’s large, warm hand on her thigh, of how it had somehow made her feel safe and in danger all at once.

She allowed herself to wallow in the memory, but only for a moment. 

Shoving those feelings back down, she dressed quickly, grateful for the feeling of clean clothes against clean skin. A rarity, lately. 

“Well, don’t you look all shiny and new,” Monty said kindly, smiling gently at Clarke by way of greeting as she wandered into the crowded, golden-lit space of the massive recreation tent. Most of the men gathered there were eating wolfishly, gulping down the hot goulash that was being served in the corner. “We saved you some stew,” he added, pushing a bowl toward her that was impressively still giving off faint steam. “Figured you’d slip in right before dinner was over again.”

“Thanks, Monty,” she said, even though she wasn’t hungry. 

She didn’t crave the food, but she was grateful for the kindness. 

Slowly, she sipped from her spoon.

“I can’t believe this is the last night already,” Jasper groaned tiredly from Monty’s other side in the grass. “Why can’t tent time be ten days? Just as long as all of the other rotations. We deserve it,” he grumbled, shoving his empty bowl aside.

“You all certainly do,” Clarke agreed. “But I imagine they can’t spare so many of us back here for that long.” 

Jasper laughed humorlessly, a hollow bark that made Clarke’s skin prickle. “No. No, they need as many bodies for cannon fodder as they can get.”

Monty’s hand went wordlessly to Jasper’s shoulder in an attempt at reassurance. “Jasper.”

Jasper turned to look at his friend, his eyes cold, gaunt. 

“Let’s enjoy our last night in here, all right? What do you say to a game of cards? I can see one that’s about to be started up back over there by Miller. I’ll wager bottom bunk,” Monty promised hopefully, wishing to pull his friend up from the darkness that had settled in his mind. 

Jasper’s head wobbled derisively. “Well, I _suppose_ that’s worth trying to win,” he said dryly, pushing himself to his feet with reluctance.

“Clarke? Join us?” Monty asked.

Clarke knew it was only politeness that kept him asking. She’d turned him down every other time, as she would do again now.

“I’m all right here,” she nodded, picking at her stew. 

“We’ll be over there if you change your mind,” he offered kindly, clapping Jasper’s back as he herded him across the tent. 

Clarke had sensed a mood shift amongst the unit as the days of Bellamy’s absence had stretched on. They were relieved to be back in the tent for a few days, of course, but the word of him being officially listed as MIA had cast a somber tinge over most of the group. 

For some, it was because they’d grown fond of Bellamy, admiring his leadership, even finding friendship with him.

For others, it served as a stark reminder that if even their captain wasn’t safe, they never would be. 

Worry blunted her appetite, and she pushed her nearly-full bowl aside, busying herself by yanking up blades of dying grass on the ground in front of her instead. Mindless, repetitive physical activity. Sometimes, it was all she felt good for. 

Time began to blur a bit as the night wore on, as if it was suspended in water, slow-moving yet still difficult to grasp. Around the tent, cold, damp night air thickened, shrouding them in a low-hanging fog. From time to time, men from the unit stopped by, greeting her, then moving along as politely as possible when they realized she was in no particular mood to be a social butterfly.

It was all right. The pressure was eased off of her as a round of nurses got off duty from the tent and came to visit with the men, to chat and to allegedly boost morale. 

Clarke despised the idea that it was up to the women to boost morale after spending hours tending to violently wounded men, but alas. What was to be done about it other than hold her ground, sitting silently, gloomily off to the side?

“Ach, look at the wee lassies parading in,” a kilted soldier from the Highland division called out. Clarke couldn’t help but smile at his boisterousness, especially now, given how badly the Scottish soldiers had been depleted in battle. It seemed that, whatever they sometimes lacked in trench warfare skills, they more than made up for in heart. 

One of the soldier’s comrades wolf-whistled, hoisting his set of battle pipes up against his body. 

“I think it’s high time for a reserve tent cèilidh,” the piper announced, and his companion roared. 

Without further preamble, the piper pressed the reed to his lips and cued up the drone of his instrument. After a moment, his fingers began flying across the chanter to send up a roiling, fast-paced dancing tune.

“Aye, that’s it,” his fellow Highlander called, and he held out his hand to a nearby nurse, who, laughing, readily took it. 

The music was contagious, pulling up the mood of the tent and riling the blood of anyone who, moments ago, would have never even thought to dance. 

More and more soldiers and nurses fell in, dancing sloppily hand-in-hand as they jigged and cantered in circles around each other. 

For the first time in months, Clarke found herself surrounded by a room full of laughter. 

And somehow, it didn’t feel so strange. She didn’t feel compelled to join in, but her heart had no room in it to begrudge the moment. 

In a way, it felt good to be reminded that all of them _could_ still laugh, could still dance and be merry. 

She knew it would all be long gone by morning, but for now, she was happy that they could hold on to the feeling, even for just a moment. 

Even Clarke found herself smiling faintly as she rose and leaned back against a wooden support beam, watching Monty and Miller get pulled in, reluctantly at first, but eventually giving in and dancing along with all the others.

Jasper, she never spotted. 

She realized how much Finn would have loved this. How much Murphy would have hated it. Her chest panged for both of them.

Somehow, she could not picture Bellamy dancing in this way. 

She wished painfully, fervently, that he was here, so she wouldn’t have to _try_ and picture how he’d react. 

Clarke watched the Scottish soldiers gather everyone up, shouting something to the group. Curious, she leaned forward, moving a few feet closer to try and understand. 

“Now, we know some of you Yanks might not know this tune, but it’s a damn fine one, and we’re going to teach it to ye now,” the piper called out, grinning.

“Are Canadians ‘Yanks’?” Clarke heard one of the men from her unit mutter to another, his voice irritated. 

“Now circle up, circle up, shoulder ta’ shoulder,” one of the other Highland soldiers called. 

In a flustered commotion, the crowd did its best to comply. 

“Now, I’m going to play,” the piper called, “and Brucey here is gonna sing. You’ll catch on eventually. Just dance,” he laughed, and began to play once more. 

His face red with drink, the soldier next to him began to sing. 

_By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes,_

_Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond,_

_Where me and my true love will never meet again,_

_On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond._

Realizing the tune, others began to join in, singing, swaying in a circle, hand in hand. 

As the Scottish two-man band hit the chorus, they began repeating it, increasing the tempo and the energy as the crowd began to catch on. 

_O you take the high road, and I'll take the low road,_

_And I'll be in Scotland afore ye,_

_But me and my true love will never meet again,_

_On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond._

The crowd began to sing fiercely, sloppily along, as the circle began to move and swirl, a large, completely uncoordinated mass motion of dance. 

“Clarke, come on!” Monty reached out to her, grabbing her hand as his bit of the circle passed her by. He tugged her into the fold, and she was caught up in the motion, laughing as she looped her arms over the shoulders of the people beside her. 

“ _You’ll take the high road, and I’ll take the low road,”_ she sang along, laughing, breathless as she stepped quickly to keep up. 

Some couples broke into the middle, dancing cheek to cheek with merriment and high spirits, their dirty boots hopping along to the beat. 

Clarke marveled at the spectacle of it, her head spinning.

_Where me and my true love will never meet again._

Clarke ripped herself out of the circle, stumbling backward toward one of the tent’s support beams. 

As she’d finally paid attention to the lyrics, the line had doused her like a bucket of freezing water. 

The song was about a soldier dying. And never seeing his lover again.

What a sick, twisted song to dance to in the middle of a war zone. 

Clarke swallowed thickly. She supposed that, in war, sometimes a sick, twisted sense of humor was the only one that could survive. 

Still, she could not bring herself to dance again. 

She leaned back against the support beam, gazing out into the cool, thick fog that still surrounded the tent. 

She didn’t want to walk back to her hut through it alone, but she didn’t have the heart to ask one of the boys to leave the party and escort her, so she stayed, silently watching as the dancers swayed on. At some point, one of the mess cooks had disappeared and returned with an accordion, and he was now playing slower tunes, letting the pairs dance to more romantic musical stylings. 

Clarke had almost totally zoned out, her mind lost out into the ether, when the sound of the accordion music sent her hurtling back into reality.

It was a familiar tune. 

The one she and Bellamy had danced to on their last night on the _Lusitania._

Her heart pounded painfully in her chest, as if it was protesting some vise around it, asking to be set free. 

One of the nurses had begun to sing along. 

“ _Let me call you sweetheart, I’m in love with you,_ ”

It was too much.

Clarke turned slowly on her heel. She would walk back to her hut alone. She didn’t care if she got lost

It was better than being in this tent right now. 

Stealing a small lantern from one of the tables that she doubted anyone would miss, she set off into the mist, making her way through the clearing that branched off toward the sleep huts. 

Halfway across the clearing, a shadow in the fog began to manifest in the shape of a stumbling soldier.

 _Great_ , Clarke thought. Just what she needed. A drunk officer out here with her while she was completely alone. Gritting her teeth, Clarke continued forward, pretending that she didn’t see the man, whoever he was. 

The figure was moving closer. 

Clarke’s pulse ticked up, and she cursed herself for leaving her trench knife on the shelf of her hut. As she increased her pace, still the soldier limped toward her. Clarke’s nerves transformed into frustration, and she lifted her lantern higher.

“What do you want?” She bit out, shouting across the yards still separating them. 

The soldier drew closer still, finally visible through the wisps of fog.

“Clarke?”

Clarke’s lantern dropped to her feet, shattering and sputtering out.

And there he was, nine days late, standing in front of her, caked in ash, in dirt, and damp with the cold, wet night air.

Bellamy.

A strangled sound escaped Clarke’s throat as she fell forward, throwing her arms around his neck. 

“You’re here,” she whimpered, gasping to catch her breath as she buried her face in his neck.

She didn’t care about the dirt, the mud, the soot. 

Bellamy was here, alive, in her arms. 

The heartsickness of the last nine days and the relief at the sight of him collided within her, and a fierce, dry sob racked her body. 

“You’re here,” she repeated, unable to let go, wishing her body could just melt into his. 

“I’m sorry it took so long,” his voice rumbled in her ear. 

“D-don’t apologize,” she demanded swiftly, forcing herself to pull back from him as she remembered he’d been missing for nine days.

She had no idea what had happened to him. 

“Are you hurt? Are you all right? Tell me-” her hands clutched at his shoulders as she dragged her gaze up and down his body, searching for obvious signs of injury. 

“Just a sore ankle. I’m not hurt,” he answered in a crackling voice. Satisfied, her eyes snapped back to his. He held her gaze, his eyes soft, exhausted, raw as they flickered over her face. 

“For a while, I wasn’t sure I’d get to see you again,” he said wearily. He lifted a hand to Clarke’s damp, tear-stained cheek, and her eyes fell shut as she leaned into the touch. She reached her hand up to his, clutching it tightly, too relieved to be embarrassed that tears were still falling from her eyes. 

“I’ve been sick with worry,” she said, her voice thick. “Where _were_ you, Bellamy?” 

“Ambushed,” he replied tiredly. “It took days and days for me to find a patch of forest where they weren’t lined up between me and our trenches. I’ve been playing dead in the underbrush for what feels like years,” he groaned, scrubbing a hand over his dirty face. 

“But you’re here now,” Clarke whispered, throwing her arms around him once more, kissing his cheek, sparing no thought to how dirty it was. 

She’d never embraced Bellamy like this before, so intentionally, so privately. There was something frighteningly vulnerable about it. As if her whole heart was on display outside her body, beating for all to see as she wrapped her arms around someone her chest had ached for. 

She didn’t want to let go.

She felt his cheek nuzzle into her hair as he deeply exhaled, and she wondered if maybe he didn’t want to let go either. 

But they couldn’t stay like this forever. 

With a mighty exertion of willpower, she slipped out of his grasp, reaching down to squeeze his hand instead. 

“You’re probably in desperate need of some food and water. And a bath,” she half-laughed, sniffling back the remains of her tears. “Just don’t eat too quickly or you’ll make yourself ill, all right?” 

She could feel his eyes on her as she led them through the mist toward the golden glow of the tent, where the dance seemed to be winding down. 

It was Jasper who spotted them first.

“Bellamy!” He shouted, sprinting across the tent and throwing his arms around him. 

Seconds later, Monty piled on. 

“We thought you were a goner,” Jasper cried, shaking his captain’s shoulders in disbelief. Clarke smiled at the reunion, wiping a stray tear left in the corner of her eye with her knuckle. 

“I’ll get you some food,” she murmured, touching his arm as she headed toward the mess station, which was in the process of closing for the evening. 

“Done for the night, missy,” one of the servers said abruptly over the counter. “Don’t try to get smart with me about it.”

Clarke’s voice was laced with steel as she replied. “My unit’s captain has just returned from the woods after being missing for nine days. You _will_ give me food, and a fresh canteen of water. _Now._ ”

Something in her demeanor must have been more intimidating than she’d expected, because the server fell silent, hurriedly dishing out some of the leftover goulash.

… 

“I’m sure you’ll want to wash before you sleep,” Clarke said to Bellamy, holding out his clean set of uniform clothing. “We’re back in the trenches tomorrow.”

Bellamy grimaced. “So soon.”

“I’m sorry.”

Bellamy looked around at the tiny hut. “So you’ve been sleeping here,” he mused. “I. . .I’ll head to the bunks tonight.”

“No,” Clarke swiftly retorted. “No. Stay in here. There’s a cot underneath this bed we can pull out. It’s fine. Really.”

He looked too tired to disagree. 

“I’ll be back,” he said wearily, trudging toward the door, brushing a hand against her shoulder as he passed her. 

Alone again, Clarke let out a shaky sigh. The adrenaline his return had sent through her veins had dissipated, leaving her weary and spun out. She changed into her nightclothes and pulled out the cot that was stored under the bed, lazily spreading the extra camp blanket over it. 

She would take the cot. God knows Bellamy deserved a bed after sleeping on who knows what for over a week, exposed to the elements and to enemy ambush.

She’d nearly dozed off by the time Bellamy returned, carrying a lantern with him, his hair still dripping slightly from the bath.

She hummed sleepily at him in greeting. 

He placed the lantern on the bedside table and all but collapsed into the thin mattress. 

For a moment, she thought he’d already fallen asleep. She’d almost expected it. 

But then.

“I missed you,” his gravelly voice was quiet, almost lost in the cold air hanging above them. 

Clarke’s heart lurched.

She prayed that the lord – and her mother – would forgive her for what she was about to do.

Silently, she slid up off her cot and got to her feet.

Bellamy’s dark eyes followed her in the lamplight, gentle, slightly questioning.

Trying to swallow around a suddenly dry mouth, she lowered herself to the edge of the bed, then swung her legs up. Her eyes stayed locked on his, waiting for him to protest. Wondering if he would.

There was nothing even remotely resembling hostility or protest in his eyes as he gazed up at her. 

So she leaned all the way down, resting her head in the crook of his shoulder and wrapping her arm over his chest.

He reached around to pull the blanket over both of them, and she burrowed further into his lean, warm body. 

She felt his hand come to rest in the curve of her waist, and the softness of his cheek settle against the top of her head. 

She thought that laying in bed with a man, practically on top of him, would make her anxious, unsettled. She shouldn’t be doing it. Technically, she shouldn’t even be in the same room with him at night. 

But she felt none of those things.

She felt safe, warm. Peaceful. More drowsy than ever.

“I missed you, too. So much,” she finally whispered back as the currents of sleep dragged her under. 

… 

_**April, 1917** _

Bellamy slowly opened his eyes, blinking blearily into the dim, gray morning light. 

The unusually icy spring air stung against his nose, and as his eyes began to focus, Clarke’s sleeping face, inches away from his on the thin pillow, swam into view. 

The blanket was pulled up to her chin, and she breathed softly, evenly. Bellamy could feel the weight of her arm laying folded under his. Even in sleep, the circles under her eyes were as dark as bruises. 

It had been a difficult winter.

They’d gotten no Christmas furlough, and no end to the war was in sight.

Not a week went by where the unit didn’t lose more than one man. 

The weather had been unusually brutal, and more than one soldier had been sent to a field hospital for hypothermia.

That was the excuse Bellamy and Clarke made for themselves when it came to sharing the same bed most nights. And it might have been true – it just wasn’t the whole truth.

In reality, they were just clinging to each other in any way that they could, anchoring each other through the war. 

After that first night when Bellamy had returned from his week trapped in the woods, when Clarke had climbed into bed with him and slept curled against his side, it had become a desperate pattern that neither of them was willing to break.

Bellamy swallowed a sigh. He could tell by the way light was flooding past the curtain that stood in as their door that it was time to get up.

“Clarke,” he whispered, reaching outside the blanket to rub a thumb back and forth over her cheek. “Clarke, it’s time to wake up.”

Her interrupted breathing told him that he’d succeeded in pulling her from slumber. 

Instead of opening her eyes and rolling out of bed, however, she burrowed even closer into him, tucking her chilled nose under his cheek.

It was things like these that threatened to get Bellamy reprimanded for neglect of duties. 

How could he possibly find the will to sit up, get out of bed, and walk away from her like this?

Her face against his, her skin touching his skin as they succumbed to the last dregs of the morning’s sleep, was one of the only places left where he still felt happiness, felt hope. 

It was the small moments with Clarke that kept him going. 

The soft, companionable silence between them as they sat face to face, Clarke gently, diligently stitching up whatever new scratch Bellamy had managed to acquire out in the field. The brush of her warm fingertips against his skin, tending to him. 

The quiet, unspoken way that they shared their food, exchanging when they knew the other preferred what one had been given, making sure the other didn’t go to bed hungry if they’d had a particularly rough day of it. 

These dreamland moments in the dawn as they huddled together, keeping each other warm, safe. Keeping each other sane. 

Bellamy no longer knew where he ended and Clarke began. 

“Clarke,” he whispered again, lightly brushing his fingertips along her messy hairline, tucking an unruly wave back from her face. 

Still, she did not stir. 

“Time to wake up,” he repeated, a little louder, nuzzling his nose against hers.

She let out the faintest of groans. 

“Nuh-uh,” she mumbled, her voice rough and thick with sleep. 

“Yes,” Bellamy countered, apologetically. 

Her skin looked so smooth, soft in the morning light. 

For a moment, he wanted to press his mouth over every inch of it. 

But that would complicate things – possibly ruin them, for all he knew – and ruining things with Clarke was unfathomable by now. He didn’t want to imagine a time where their easy, close companionship was lost to him. The thought of it downright petrified him. 

Her eyes finally flickered open, slow, hindered with lingering exhaustion.

They laid there for a moment, just looking at each other. Silently recognizing that they couldn’t stay here. That they had to face the day. 

The 1st Canadian division had been deployed to Arras, a city near the Belgian border. The Allies were planning a massive assault and, for the first time since Clarke and Bellamy had joined the war, their division would be fighting alongside not the French or English, but three other Canadian divisions.

So much glory, lying in wait for the armies of their home country.

Glory, or widespread, devastating slaughter.

They would only find out in the weeks to come. 

Bellamy needed to get to his strategy meetings, and Clarke needed to head off on her morning rounds.

And yet, neither of them seemed to have the will to disentangle themselves from each other, trapped under the intoxicating warmth of their doubled-up camp blankets. 

“Captain Blake, mail delivery, sir,” a soldier’s voice came from just outside the curtain.

Bellamy saw Clarke’s eyes widen almost comically, and he leapt out of bed, shivering at the sudden cold and throwing the blanket back over Clarke to cover her entirely, hiding her from view. 

He hurried to the curtain, peeking his head around it. 

“Any for Miss Griffin?” He asked, taking the letter addressed to him from the soldier’s gloved hands. 

He shook his head.

“Be off, then,” Bellamy nodded, ducking back inside the hut with little patience. 

Clarke had finally sat up in bed, wrapping one of the blankets around herself like a shroud. Her hair was sticking out in every direction, and Bellamy tamped down on a smile. 

“Octavia?” Clarke asked, her eyes following him as he crossed the room and sank down on the edge of the bed.

“It is,” he confirmed, breaking the seal and unfolding the worn, crinkled paper. 

Clarke scooted toward him, her blanket still wrapped up to her ears, and leaned against his shoulder to read the letter along with him.

After a moment, she gasped. Bellamy read slightly slower than she did, and it took him a second or two to understand what had prompted her surprise.

“Octavia’s _engaged,_ ” Bellamy said flatly, unable to believe the words on the paper. 

“She sounds happy,” Clarke added, pressing her cheek against his upper arm.

“I’ve never even met the man,” Bellamy said in disbelief, trying to wrap his head around the fact that his little sister was engaged to be wed.

“Well, chances are he’ll be somewhere on the battlefield with us soon,” Clarke said darkly. Lincoln was in the 3rd Canadian division, which, if the generals were to be believed, was currently marching toward them at this very moment, preparing to join the other divisions on the front lines.

“That’s a grim thought, isn’t it,” Bellamy said warily. 

He’d never met the man, and yet he already found himself fearing for his life, terrified that he would die anonymously on the same battlefield Bellamy would be fighting on, unbeknownst to him until the inevitable letter from his sister, angry and rife with devastation.

He didn’t want the war to break his sister’s heart, too.

It already broke his own nearly every day. 

“Too bad she’s never sent a photo, or I’d watch out for him,” Clarke said, her cheek still warming through the cotton of his heavy undershirt. “Then again, it’s probably better off if I _don’t_ meet him,” Clarke amended, considering the circumstances in which she usually met men throughout the war. 

Reluctantly, Bellamy rose from his seat, leaving her side to tuck Octavia’s letter into his pack. He’d write her back when he had the time and the energy to send her proper congratulations. 

“My mother can hardly believe I’m _not_ engaged every time she writes me,” Clarke said derisively. “I don’t think she understands that most of my interactions with soldiers don’t exactly leave room for romance.”

“Do you wish they did?” Bellamy asked before he could stop himself. He turned away from her, scowling. _What kind of question was that?_

“Not at all,” Clarke replied easily, tiptoeing over to her own abandoned bed to pull on her uniform. “Every day when I wake up, all I wish for is to be allowed to stay in bed. I wish for a hot meal. I wish for the war to be over. And if that can’t be, I only wish that you and the boys come back safe,” she said quietly, her eyes soft on him as she buttoned up her ragged, dirty boots. “Clearly, I don’t often get what I wish,” she laughed humorlessly.

Bellamy began pulling on his own overcoat. “Maybe you will soon. The generals seem to have high hopes for Arras in the coming weeks.”

“And do you?” She asked calmly, her eyes boring into him.

Bellamy could only shake his head in silence.

The Allies were slipping. If the war ended any time soon – which he doubted – it would be because they’d suffered defeat beyond repair. 

“That’s what I thought,” Clarke said somberly, rolling up her hair and tucking pins into it. 

Bellamy situated his cap over his dirty, unkempt curls. “I should be back tonight at sundown, for my fence mending shift,” he said, his voice thin. He was already tired, and he hadn’t even gone out yet for the day. “Try to stay warm. Come back here and rest if you need to, all right? I’ll see you soon.”

“Good luck,” she wished him, her own voice weary, but still kind. 

As Bellamy strode out into the trenches, he squinted into the white, overcast sky. He thought briefly of his sister, of her news, and hoped that, when she woke up over there on the other side of the Atlantic, she’d have a happier day than he knew he would.

… 

Clarke yawned as she exited the dugout, only a minute or two after Bellamy. 

The beginnings and ends of her days were the only bits she could find herself looking forward to anymore. Everything in the middle broke either her heart or her spirit.

But the bookends of the days – spent with Bellamy, quiet, alone in their quarters – they were a balm, a blessing.

There was nothing that she relished more now than the feeling of Bellamy’s hands on her face, his low voice in her ear as he stirred her from slumber in the cool light of the dawn, so incredibly gentle, tender. 

In a world full of death, of forced detachment for the sake of one’s sanity, and of heartless violence, those were the moments that made her feel loved. Reminded her that she was a human being with thoughts and feelings that didn’t revolve around a battlefield. 

But there was a line, and they never crossed it.

It wasn’t proper. It would be too messy, too complicated. 

Neither of which were things they were equipped to deal with here, now.

But oh, did she want to toe that line. So badly that it strained in the pit of her stomach, nearly making her feel ill with want sometimes. 

But it wasn’t the time, and this was the last place in the world for that sort of thing.

So instead, she kept it to herself. 

As Clarke approached Company B in the gray morning light, she noticed that several men had come up to clap Monty on the back, cheering him on, chucking the brim of his hat. 

“What’s got you boys so chipper this morning?” She asked, hands on her hips, trying not to shiver in the cold.

“Harper’s father has written his consent for me to ask for her hand,” Monty beamed, waving a letter in his right hand. “Swell, huh? I’m going to do it as soon as I can get furlough again. Whenever that is,” he rolled his eyes. 

None of their furlough requests had been approved for months, thanks to the impending maneuver near the border. 

“Oh, Monty, congratulations!” Clarke smiled genuinely for the first time in what felt like weeks.

It wasn’t every day that they got good news down here in the trenches.

In fact, most days, they didn’t. 

It was always no news, or bad news.

“Certainly cause to celebrate,” she continued, shooting him a grin. “Too bad there’s no cake down here.”

“We can just close our eyes while we eat our rock-hard crackers and pretend it’s cake,” Jasper said wryly, leaning against the sandbags behind Monty. 

“You know, France is famous for their bakeries. I for one feel cheated we’ve never gotten to sample from any of them while we’re here,” Miller said flatly. 

“Are there any bakeries even left in France?” One of the newer privates grumbled. “Every building in the country has been shelled out by Germans, from the looks of it.”

Clarke’s stomach began to growl at the talk of pastries. Usually, she wasn’t very hungry, but Monty’s news had boosted her spirits, and boosted spirits sometimes inspired appetite. 

But rations had been slimmer, a bit more anemic lately. Almost nothing with sugar, and very little meat. 

Hunger wasn’t something so easily satisfied. 

In an attempt to quell it, Clarke blustered forward with her morning rounds. 

“All right, everyone. Sorry, but you know what time it is. Trench foot check!”

The circle of soldiers around her groaned.

… 

Later in the day, near nightfall, Bellamy called his unit to attention, gathering them in around him as best as he could in the narrow trench corridors.

“All right. I know you’ve all heard about the planned offensive to take Vimy Ridge.”

The men nodded, some of their faces blanching under soot and dirt.

“Well, it’s happening sooner than we expected. We’re leaving the trenches to march toward the ridge. Tonight.”

An unsettled murmur rippled through the crowd. 

“We’ll make camp on the road,” Bellamy added, resting his hands tiredly on his hips.

Clarke frowned. Camping? On the road? That didn’t sound particularly safe.

And what was she supposed to do? Lay down her blanket and sleep alongside all of the men?

She supposed that wasn’t really much worse than sleeping in the bunks of the troop ship. 

But open-air camping would mean no privacy, which meant no Bellamy.

She sighed, crestfallen.

This was war. Obviously she wasn’t always going to get what she wanted. She had no right to be unhappy about this. 

“Pack up your gear. We move out in half an hour.”

Bellamy nodded at the men, and his gaze shifted to Clarke. Was that. . .commiseration in his eyes? Did he resent the loss of their sleeping quarters, too?

Clarke followed him into their dugout to pack up her meager belongings. 

“What’s going on?” Clarke asked, shoving her extra pair of stockings into her pack.

Bellamy sighed, his back to her. His shoulders slumped more than usual.

Something was weighing on him. 

“The siege on the ridge is supposed to begin tomorrow,” he finally admitted. “Our division is being directed to the right of the line. We’re supposed to cover the most ground.”

Clarke was silent. She could tell by the hesitation in his voice that he wasn’t finished.

“It’s a plain, Clarke. Open ground. Our trenches stop miles before the point of attack.”

She swallowed with some difficulty. An open plain? It sounded like a slaughtering field. Easy for the enemy battalions on the ridge above to just pick the Canadian divisions off, wave by wave. 

“And. . .this is supposed to work?” Clarke asked, her voice thin, skeptical.

“Yes,” Bellamy nodded. “The officers have been doing strategy meetings, training for weeks now. They’ve devised some sort of leap-frog maneuver that should help us take the ridge. We’ll have heavier artillery with us than we’ve had in months. They’re sending tanks, too.”

Clarke tilted her head to the side, unsure of what was eating at Bellamy. “If it’s expected to be a success, what’s got you so worried, Bellamy?” 

He finally turned to face her, twisting his cap in his hands. His face was tense, almost pained in expression. 

“It’s uncharted territory, Clarke. There’s no trenches. There’s nowhere to take cover, and we’re going to be on the front lines.”

Clarke grimaced. “It sounds frightening, but-”

“There’s nowhere for you to hide out there, Clarke,” he interrupted, his voice strained. “No dugouts to stay in, no army hospitals, nothing. You’ll have your uniform, and no armies are supposed to target medics, but there’s no guarantee you’ll be safe. At all.”

The blood in Clarke’s veins chilled.

It was _her_ he was worried about.

She hadn’t thought about this.

Clarke grit her teeth. _This doesn’t matter,_ she reminded herself. She’d agreed to be a nurse medic on the front lines, and that was what she was going to do. 

It was her duty to help everyone she was able to. Sure, she was afraid, but she didn’t want to hide away, alone for hours, waiting for news of how many men had died out there, helpless, left to themselves in the bloodied grass. 

She had her helmet. She had her trench knife.

She had to do what she could.

“It’s all right, Bellamy,” she said gently, dropping her pack to the ground and closing the distance between them. “I signed up for this. I’ll be careful, but I’m going to do my job.”

“Your job shouldn’t have to be like this,” he ground out. “I can’t protect you out there, Clarke. If I’m distracted by you, trying to keep you safe, I can’t command my men. But if I stay focused on my men, I’ll lose my mind because I won’t be able to protect you!”

Clarke glanced down to see his fists clenched. 

They were shaking. 

“Bellamy,” she protested quietly, snaking her fingers between his. “It’s not your job to worry about me out on the field. I have to do what needs to be done, and that’s that. You do what you have to do, and I’ll do the same. That’s how it has to be,” she said firmly, emphasizing her point with a squeeze of her hand. 

He gazed down at her for a long, unbroken moment, his dark eyes flickering between hers, his forehead creased with worry. 

“I’m asking you to stay behind,” he admitted, almost inaudibly. 

A tiny fissure in Clarke’s heart, the smallest of cracks, echoed through her chest. 

He’d never asked something like this of her before. Something about this made him afraid enough to ask her to no longer do what she’d come here to do.

And she just couldn’t agree to it.

“Bellamy,” she said, trying to soften the sharp edges of remonstrance in her voice. “Last I checked, I don’t take orders from you.”

He shifted his weight, unlacing their fingers and reaching down to grab her waist with his hands. “Then tell me what to do, Clarke,” he pleaded.

The desperation in his voice made Clarke’s eyes water, a hot, stinging sensation pricking behind her lids. 

No.

She wasn’t going to cry.

Damn Bellamy for making her consider the mortality of them both. It was something she tried hard to never think about, day in and day out. 

She _couldn’t_ think about it. The fear would eat at her from the inside out, paralyze her. 

Like it was doing to him now.

“Look after your men,” she said softly, reaching up to cradle his face in her hands. “And I’ll do the same. And we’ll find each other when it’s over.”

He stared back down at her, shaking his head slightly, distress still written all over his features.

“I _promise,_ ” she said. 

And yet, it was an impossible promise for her to make.

But she had to believe it – they both did – if they were going to get through this. 

“Look. I have my helmet. I have the knife you gave me. I’ll have my uniform. White with the red cross on it. They know not to shoot. I’ll be all right.”

He held her gaze, seemingly out of words. 

Something softened in his eyes. Concession, or maybe defeat. 

Tiredly, he craned his neck down, pressing his forehead to hers as his eyes fell shut. 

She exhaled deeply, trying to ignore the ramped-up heartbeat pattering in her chest. 

As his nose brushed hers, her mind flew to the unignorable reality that it would be so easy – devastatingly easy, really – to close the inch or two of gap between them and press her mouth to his. To lay kisses on his cheeks, on the tip of his nose, on the shower of freckles that sprinkled his visage. 

She desperately wanted to.

The loud, clattering march of soldiers on the other side of the curtain ripped them back into reality. 

Clarke yanked her hands away from his neck, stepping back. 

He remained motionless for a moment, his eyes still closed, before he sighed, moving his hands to his hips and glancing at the white, chalky dugout they were about to leave behind. 

“We need to go,” he muttered, turning to continue tossing the rest of his things into his pack.

… 

The darkness of the open road was eerily silent as they marched, save for the rhythmic thud of boots on dirt and sporadic mutters of soldiers from shoulder to shoulder. The fog of their breath puffed out in front of them in the damp, cold night air.

Bellamy kept in line with his soldiers, treading carefully, trying to maintain proper pace in front of them. Next to them on the road was a rickety supply truck, creaking and bouncing over rocks and potholes. 

On the seat, next to the driver, sat Clarke, her elbows tucked in tight as she clung to her pack and her medic kit. 

Bellamy wished with all of his might that she wasn’t so stubborn, so _good._

That way, she might have done what he asked. She might have stayed back, content to wait instead of attend alongside them on the battlefield. 

But she _was_ good. Dedicated to her work. Selfless in almost every way. It seemed that everyone else in the world was put before herself. Of _course_ she’d insisted on staying with her unit.

And Bellamy knew that he would get no sleep tonight, on the eve of the siege, because of it.

At some point late in the evening, the division was brought to a halt and told to hunker down for the night. 

Colonel Tremblay, who’d been promoted early in the winter, was nowhere to be seen. His replacement, Colonel Kane, marched the line with a commanding presence, despite his status as a relative newcomer. 

“Men,” he called over the companies surrounding him. Bellamy lifted his chin, standing at attention, glancing around furtively to make sure his unit was doing the same. “I am sure you’re all aware by now how incredibly vital the offensive tomorrow is to the Allied forces. For the first time since the start of this war, all four Canadian divisions will be fighting alongside each other. It is _imperative_ that we succeed. The fate of the Allies depends upon it.”

The colonel ceased pacing and halted in the center, his face thrown in sharp relief by the lantern held by his aid. 

_"You_ _must not fail._ "

A heavy, monumental silence fell over the companies. 

Kane stared them down, his dark eyes unflinching as they roved over the lines of soldiers.

“We attack before dawn. Five, tomorrow morning. Your captains will inform you of your course of action. Best of luck to you all.”

With a curt nod, he commanded them at ease, and walked briskly toward Bellamy’s unit.

_Oh no._

“For the love of _christ,_ can someone tell me what a woman is doing with your unit?” The colonel hissed, gesturing to his right. Bellamy glanced up to see Clarke standing on the outskirts of Company B. He could tell by the way she was biting her lip that she was trying not to let her teeth chatter in the cold. Her eyes met his, wide, questioning, as she saw the colonel pointing at her.

Bellamy stepped forward, saluting. “That’s our medic, sir. There was a shortage back when our company was first formed, and she was sent instead. Highly recommended by the training program in Halifax, sir.”

Colonel Kane raised a skeptical eyebrow.

Bellamy swallowed, digging his metaphorical heels deeper into the ground. “She’s been invaluable to our men, sir. Most of us here would have been dead months ago without her.”

Something in the colonel’s eyes softened as he studied Bellamy. It made him want to squirm. What was the officer thinking?

“Is that the way of it, boys?” He asked suddenly, looking past Bellamy to his men.

A chorus of enthusiastic affirmatives rose from behind Bellamy, and he fought to keep his expression neutral. His eyes darted over to Clarke.

She’d lost the battle with her smile. She grinned back at the boys, a huff of breath rising from her lips like smoke. 

“I still have my left ear because of Nurse Griffin,” Bernie blurted out, and several of the men struggled to hold back a snort. 

The colonel’s head whipped around to Clarke. “Nurse Griffin? From Halifax, you say?” He trod over to her, his boots crunching in the chalky dead grass.

Bellamy followed, unsure of what was going on, unwilling to leave Clarke to stand up to the colonel alone, whatever might happen. 

“Yes, sir...?” She answered, her reply sounding more like a question than a statement. At her side, Bellamy could see her flexing her fingers in the folds of her skirts, trying to keep them warm. 

“And would your mother happen to be a nurse as well, Miss Griffin?” He continued, almost kindly. 

“She is, sir,” Clarke nodded. 

The colonel’s serious expression cracked, a half-smile tugging at his lips. “Well, I’ll be damned. Your mother looked after me in the convalescent hospital in Halifax last year after I was hit by some shrapnel,” he revealed, relaxing his stance, as he now spoke to a lady and not a soldier. “Any time Nurse Griffin was on duty, I knew I was in good hands.”

Clarke smiled warily, accepting the man’s handshake. Bellamy assumed that she heard the note in the colonel’s voice too – a note that suggested feelings more than simple gratitude toward his healer.

“I presume it runs in the family. She spoke about you, said you were at the front. I never imagined she meant it quite so literally,” Colonel Kane said, incredulity shading his voice. 

“I go where I’m sent,” Clarke said politely. Her brow wrinkled, the façade falling a bit. “Sir, did my mother seem well when last you saw her? We weren’t granted furlough last year. I haven’t seen her since Christmas, two years ago now.”

“She seemed very well indeed,” Kane replied, the smile on his lips growing, almost as if he was unaware of it. 

“I thank you for the news, then.” 

“Do tell her I said hello next time you write, if you’d be so kind,” the colonel said, the tone in his voice suggesting he was wrapping the conversation up. “Now, if you two will excuse me, I’ve got strategy plans to review. Good evening.” He saluted Bellamy, saving a more friendly nod for Clarke.

They both stared after him as he marched back out into the darkness.

“Small world,” Bellamy observed dryly. 

“You’re telling me,” she muttered back, stamping her feet in the cold. “Bellamy, how are we supposed to sleep out here like this?” Her head turned to watch the soldiers shuffle off the road, setting up camp in the treeline. 

“I’m not sure we were ever really expected to,” Bellamy said grimly, brushing her back and steering them after the rest of the company. 

“It’s so cold,” she groaned, blowing a fleeting breath over her fists in a sad attempt to warm them. “There’s no shelter, and we can’t even – I mean, I mean we can’t-” 

She trailed off, and Bellamy knew she meant that they couldn’t huddle for warmth. He held back from sneering at the irony of it. How the coldest night happened to be the one night they couldn’t sleep in the same bed. Or any bed, it seemed.

“I know,” he murmured. “Do you want me to see if anyone can spare you another camp blanket?”

She shook her head vehemently. “No. If no one else gets two, I don’t want two.”

Bellamy turned away from her for a moment, shaking his head slightly to himself.

He wondered if his first impression of her, nearly two years ago now, could have _possibly_ been more wrong. 

Shuffling toward a clear spot just inside the forest, Bellamy shrugged off his pack and tugged out his camp blanket, planning to use the pack as a pillow. 

Clarke dropped her bags, intending to do the same. 

Bellamy looked around, realizing that Clarke was currently standing between him and a large group of soldiers from Company A just on the other side of some underbrush.

“Clarke, it’s safer on this side,” he spoke up, patting the ground to his right, which was between him and a sprawl of gnarled tree roots. 

She glanced down, squinting, and for a moment, she looked like she was about to protest. But then her eyes shifted toward the group of men nearby, toward their boisterous false bravado, and seemed to change her mind.

Silently, she stepped over him, rolling out her blanket between him and the tree. 

They laid there quietly, listening to the sounds of the makeshift camp grow softer as men around them went to sleep, or at least pretended to.

After a while, Clarke spoke up, her voice so soft he almost didn’t hear.

“Do you think it’s wrong to be scared, Bellamy?”

His heart sank. He turned to look at her, straining to make out her features in the darkness of the forest.

“I’d be concerned if you weren’t,” he replied softly. “All of us are scared, Clarke. Myself included.”

“We’ll make it,” he heard her thin voice reply over the rustle of her body shifting inside her blanket. “We have to.”

At his side, he felt something pawing at him. He startled, his first thoughts going to some kind of small animal.

Then he remembered that the war had chased animals from the land long before this. 

No. Instead, it was Clarke’s icy little hand, searching for his. 

He wrapped his fingers around hers, squeezing them as he drew them up against his chest.

The two of them lay there, unsure of how long, listening to the rustling of branches above, the intermittent snores of soldiers below. 

Trying not to think about how by this time tomorrow, they’d be out on the plains.

… 

The disorienting patter of something falling from above woke Clarke.

It was cold, weighing down her blanket and biting at her face.

It was rain.

No, not rain. 

_Sleet._

Clarke shielded her face against it in the semi-darkness, only to see that Bellamy was awake, moving around the camp alongside other soldiers.

She thought he glanced down at her, but it was so dim, it was nearly impossible to make out his eyes. 

“It’s time to move out,” he said in a grim, low voice, nodding toward the road.

Somewhere on the road past the treeline, Clarke could hear the groaning wheels of tanks, slowly moving by like great, monstrous slugs. 

She hated the tanks. They didn’t work almost half the time, and the accidents when they didn’t. . .they were rather gruesome, often barbecuing the men inside operating the machine alive, trapping them in metal boxes filled with scorching flames. 

Cold to the bone, Clarke hoisted herself stiffly from the frozen ground, squinting in the darkness to roll up her pack. Next to her, Bellamy squatted down, her rum ration and some tinned beans in his hands. 

“Mm, beans. Something new and different,” she joked dryly, shooting down her rum and peeling back the tin lid to slurp what was likely to be her only meal for the day. 

Possibly her last meal ever. 

_What a horrible thought_ , she shuddered, pushing it quickly from her mind. 

She squinted over at Bellamy, her eyes trembling against the falling sleet. 

“The weather’s on our side, at least,” she chattered. “The Germans won’t be able to see us coming through this mess.”

“We’ll need all the advantage we can get,” Bellamy yawned, shifting his weight as he remained crouched beside her.

“Did you get any sleep?”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t.” He cleared his throat. “It’s all right. I’ll sleep when it’s over.”

Unable to stand the cold, Clarke shoved her hands into her pack, hiding them from the sleet amongst her hastily folded camp blanket. 

“Bellamy, do you think I could borrow a spare overcoat from the supply wagon?” She sniffled, her nose running in the wet cold. “This sleet is miserable.”

It took him a second to answer, and when he did, his voice sounded strained. “I’m sorry, Clarke. I know it’s cold, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. The coat would cover up your medical uniform, make you blend in with the soldiers more. You wouldn’t be as safe. I’m sorry.”

Clarke grimaced. She hadn’t thought of that. “That’s all right,” she reassured him, her voice thin. “I’m sure when I start running around I’ll be warmer in no time.” 

“Clarke,” he said suddenly, his voice rough, low. “It’s not too late to just stay here. No one would blame you. Not one bit.”

“I would blame myself, Bellamy.” She nudged his shoulder. “I’m coming with you. It’s the right thing to do.”

They both jumped as Colonel Marcus Kane’s voice boomed through the sleet from somewhere behind them. 

“It’s time to fall in line. Get in formation and prepare to march,” he ordered sharply, his words ringing, bouncing through the whistling wind. 

Bellamy grasped for Clarke’s shoulder, gripping it with some sort of desperate urgency. “Stay as close to our unit as you can, all right? Keep near the back. Once we’re on the plain, stay low. Don’t stand up and run full-tilt if you can help it. Don’t hesitate to call for more medics, and _please_ don’t hesitate to take cover if you feel particularly unsafe.”

He offered a hand to her, and she took it as he pulled them up from the ground. Most of the men had stumbled through the underbrush and back out onto the road. Bellamy was glancing around furtively, and she gazed up at him, confused. What was he searching for?

Something in his eyes settled, and he pulled her a bit closer as he leaned down, dragging her in by the back of her neck with the crook of his elbow and pressing a kiss to her hairline. Clarke’s eyes drifted shut at the soft, warm touch of his mouth against her chilled skin. She held her breath until he pulled away, and some small, strange part of her felt like crying out.

But she didn’t.

“ _Please_ be careful, Clarke,” he nearly begged, his face etched with worry.

“You too, Bellamy. I need to see you on the other side of this, all right?” Clarke’s heart pounded in her chest. She might be too forward for saying it, but it was more than true. Something about Bellamy had moved past the stage of want and wanting. She truly _needed_ him to survive. His existence now was too intricately interwoven with her own. She _had_ to keep him by her side.

He said nothing, only gazed back down at her for a moment before turning toward the road.

“We have to go,” he admitted, and, offering his arm to her, he led them to the treeline, taking her to stand beside the rest of their unit in the relentless, bone-chilling sleet. 

As they marched toward the plain, Clarke found it impossible to think, to concentrate on anything but the cold wet sleet, the dim horizon that was gradually lightening into an ominous, icy gray. The sound of thousands of pairs of boots on the road. The creaking groans of the tanks to their far right. 

The importance of this offensive played in her mind on a deafening loop, like a broken recording on a gramophone. 

_We have to win. We have to win. The fate of the Allies depends on this. We have to win._

She stamped her boots a little harder over the ground, trying to force more feeling into her legs as she trudged forward like an automaton. 

She tried to think of more pleasant things. Of her mother, despite their differences, embracing her in greeting. Of the smell of the old books on her father’s bookshelf in the Seabright house. The sound of the ocean waves breaking against the shore there. Of the warmth, the smell of a crackling fire and woodsmoke on Bonfire Night, which she used to celebrate alongside family friends in St. John’s. 

Of her father’s voice, laughing across the water as he called out to her from his boat. 

Of the touch of Bellamy’s fingertips on her face in the morning light, grazing her cheeks, her nose, her hair, softly coaxing her awake. 

But the happy memories could not take hold.

No, her mind could only circle back to the boys she’d lost. Murphy, Finn. Countless others. 

She couldn’t stop wondering which of them would join the ranks of the dead by sundown tonight. 

She shook herself mentally. She couldn’t think about that. It helped nothing, no one.

She must think about the living, and what she could do to help them. 

Clenching her fists, she walked on.

… 

Bellamy screamed in frustration, his vocal cords shot, stretched raw as he ran forward alongside his men.

The fighting had been going for over thirty hours now. The sun would be setting soon, wherever it was. He didn’t have the time to look up.

Even though they were currently holding a miraculously decisive advantage, the siege for the ridge had been brutal. The artillery fire, the shelling was expected; Bellamy hardly batted an eye at it at this point. 

No, what had made this fight different, and particularly distressing, was the employment in the last few hours of close-quarters combat. 

German troops had come running down the ridge on some apparent suicide mission as the giant wave of Canadian forces had surged up it. For the first time since he’d been at the front, Bellamy and his unit had had to use the bayonet attachments for their rifles. 

Bellamy was strong. He knew how to fight. Most of his men knew how to fight.

But none of that made it any better, any easier. 

The feeling of the sharp blade at the end of his rifle barrel, puncturing the torsos, the chests, the backs of the enemy men, made his stomach churn. 

Bellamy wondered if he was a coward, given how much he preferred shooting from a distance to this. 

He couldn’t bear to feel his blade impale them, squelch through their bodies sickeningly, mortally wounding them. He was shaken with every instance of eye contact, of watching the shock, the fear in their eyes, of the life force behind them sapping away rapidly, leaving their bodies completely.

The bodies of men who had just as little say in being here as he did. 

After a while, he began praying to no god in particular for it to end, muttering fervently under his breath, his mind and body screaming for a ceasefire that felt as if it would never come. 

For a few seconds at a time, he would fleetingly wish that he would be struck down, too. For it to all be over. 

Maybe it was what he deserved. 

Every once in a while, as he struggled to catch his breath, he scanned the field around him, desperately searching for a glimpse of white, a flicker of a red cross stitched on a uniform.

He found the energy to keep moving every time his eyes found her. 

Her movements as the hours wore on seemed to slow, but he suspected it was happening to all of them, the cold, wet, oppressive weather sinking into their bones, stiffening their joints. The sleet and snow had been falling on and off for the last day and a half. Bellamy had his suspicions that if he remained still for longer than thirty seconds at a time, his soaking wet overcoat would begin to freeze in place. 

As Bellamy yanked his bayonet out of a rogue, unfortunate enemy soldier, he stumbled around, taken aback by the thinning of the field.

No, no longer the field.

They’d made it to the top of the ridge.

They’d taken it. Vimy Ridge was theirs. 

Gasping, he turned to look behind him, casting his eyes down to the slope below.

It was littered with cold mud, with craters, strewn with broken, lifeless bodies. 

Bellamy felt no sense of victory. 

He shook; from the cold, or from something else, he could not determine. 

And, just as he thought he’d never hear the words, Colonel Kane’s hoarse voice pierced the air. 

“Fall back!” He waved his arm in a half-circle, motioning them to his right. “We have taken the ridge! We have taken the trenches! 1st Division, fall back!”

Bellamy rested his hands on his hips, wondering if the wetness he felt on his coat was melted sleet or blood. He didn’t feel compelled to look down and discover the answer. 

He scanned the ridge for his unit, dreading the headcount. Wondering how many had been lost today. 

Yesterday alone, Company B had lost two dozen men, either to hospitals or unmarked graves.

As the sky slowly darkened, the sun sinking behind the trees, a light snow began to fall. 

Bellamy’s heart stuttered as he caught sight of a bloodied white apron a few dozen yards below him.

It was Clarke with a soldier clutched against her, prone in her lap. 

Though his frozen joints groaned in protest, Bellamy began to run, stepping as carefully as he could down the corpse-strewn ridge.

His stomach clenched painfully as he grew near enough to see who it was in Clarke’s arms.

“Monty,” she gasped, tears running in tracks across her blood-and-dirt-streaked face. “Monty, hold on, all right? We’ll call for help.”

Private Monty Green, always wise, unfailingly kind, and the first to lend a helping hand, was sprawled across Clarke’s soaked skirts, his blood staining them dark. It welled from his chest, from his mouth, too. 

“T-tell Harper t-that I love h-her,” he spluttered, his voice thin, faint with shock.

Before Bellamy could kneel, a soldier came blazing past him, dropping onto his knees across from Clarke.

“Monty, no! No, no, no,” Jasper whined, clawing for his friend’s limp, pale hand. “Monty, old friend, hang in there! We’ll have you fixed up s-so soon, I promise,” he gasped, tears falling down his own grimy face. 

“Jasper,” Monty whispered, ever so slowly turning his eyes to his friend. He smiled up at him weakly. “I hope…”

The fallen soldier trailed off, his spirit leaving his body before the words had finished leaving his mouth. 

A wild, agonized cry ripped from Jasper’s throat, and he wept openly, still clutching to the lifeless hand of his dearest friend. 

Clarke’s face crumpled as her eyes rose to meet Bellamy’s. She cried alongside Jasper, though her tears dripped quietly over their dead comrade, her uncontrollable gasps a pitiful contrast to Jasper’s broken keening. 

Bellamy closed his eyes against the scene. He didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to absorb this reality here in front of him.

Every soldier lost was something to grieve over, but Monty had been with him ever since he’d become a captain. And Monty, who’d kept his kindness and his gentle heart through it all, had been a rare breed. 

“W-we have to let them take him,” Clarke hiccupped, her eyes roving tiredly toward the pairs of men with stretchers, assigned to take the bodies to the mass grave site. “We can’t let him be left here.”

Jasper didn’t acknowledge her, still gasping with sobs as he slumped over the body. 

Clenching his jaw, Bellamy motioned for one of the pairs with a stretcher to come over to them.

Their eyes were flat, lifeless as they deposited the makeshift stretcher on the now-accumulating snow, glancing at Monty’s body expectantly. 

“Jasper, we have to let him go. He’s not here anymore. Not with us. Not in body.” Clarke’s voice was weak, sounding as if it was near the verge of collapse. 

Bellamy fully understood. 

Numbly, Jasper sat back, lumbering to his feet, his eyes fixed on nothing. 

Clarke gently lifted the tags from Monty’s neck before the two men shifted his body onto the stretcher, silently carrying it down the ridge.

“Take these,” Clarke whispered, pressing the chain and tags into Jasper’s hand after she struggled to stand. 

Jasper squeezed them tightly in his palm, and Bellamy saw a trickle of blood run down to his wrist as he gripped the tags too tightly, the tin digging into his skin. 

Wordlessly, he turned away from them, slogging through the snow and back up the ridge. 

Bellamy’s eyes shifted back to Clarke, who almost looked to be swaying on her feet. Her uniform, which was stitched from blue and white cloth, now appeared almost entirely red and brown, completely soiled with blood and dirt. It was on her face, her neck, her hands as well. 

His princess and her crown of blood.

The sight of her would frighten him if he didn’t know her, didn’t care for her so deeply. 

Besides, he was sure he didn’t look much better. 

“Clarke,” he began, thinking to invite her back up to the ridge, where the companies were gathering. 

“I have to keep searching for the wounded,” she said suddenly, her voice cracking, and she turned away from him and strode off. 

Bellamy’s eyes followed her tiredly, fighting the urge to go after her. It _was_ her job. The sooner she finished, the sooner she could rest – something he knew she hadn’t done in nearly a day and a half.

He knew, because he hadn’t either. 

And she was safe now. The Germans had retreated back by a few miles, and the ones that hadn’t were being corralled as prisoners of war. 

Reluctantly, Bellamy turned away from her retreating back and shuffled back up the snow-covered slope. 

“What’s the plan?” Bellamy asked Colonel Kane, who was pacing along the crest of the ridge. 

“We’re currently having men check the abandoned trenches for any mines, booby traps, and the like,” Kane replied, his answer interrupted by a wracking cough. “Once the all-clear is given, we’re moving in to rest and regroup. Only the 4th Division has yet to accomplish their objective of taking their part of the ridge some distance north, but they are not near us, and they are expected to be victorious within the next day or two.”

Kane eyed him with sympathy. “You look like hell. We all do. Go tell your men that they’ll be moving into the trenches after nightfall. What’s left of them, anyway, I suppose,” he added darkly, his features shaded with sorrow for a moment before he caught himself and straightened his expression. He patted Bellamy’s shoulder roughly. 

“You did good, Captain Blake. All of you.” With a final nod, he turned to leave, heading for a pair of officers who’d just arrived at the top of the hill. 

Bellamy glanced back at his men, who’d collapsed against each other in the snow, filthy and weak with exhaustion that mirrored his own.

Jasper stood apart from them, staring mutely into the distance, his expression shell-shocked. 

Bellamy tried to push the image of Monty’s broken, lifeless body from his mind. 

Tried to push away the thoughts of his bayonet, piercing the flesh of so many men. 

The persistent nagging in his brain reminding him of just how much blood – literal, but primarily metaphorical – was on his hands. 

He bit down on the inside of his cheek hard enough to break the skin. The coppery taste of pennies flooded his tongue, and he spat, the blood from his mouth glistening on the freshly fallen snow.

Taking a deep breath, he hunched his shoulders against the cold, trudging forward to speak to his men.

… 

It had been dark for several hours by the time Clarke was commanded by a field doctor to finish her work and go rest before she fainted and took up precious space on a stretcher.

Her feet were absolutely numb with cold from shuffling around for hours in the falling snow, but she’d pushed herself longer and longer, unwilling to go back up the ridge and into the German tunnels.

She was afraid to face herself in the silence and the quiet that would follow.

If not for the crushing cycle of her mind revisiting everything she’d seen and felt today – her arms, soaked with blood and snow, the weight of Monty’s lifeless form across her knees, the sight of the frozen ground densely littered with torn, broken bodies – Clarke wouldn’t have been able to convince herself that she was still real, living, and not some kind of frosty, listless ghost. 

But now, her time was up.

As she dragged her feet to the top of the ridge and muttered a plea for directions to the trenches designated for Company B, all she could focus on was the cold, damp filth that had settled over every inch of her body. One of the soldiers keeping watch flat-out stared at her, his tired eyes rounded with horror.

She must be a sight. 

She propelled herself through the tunnels and trenches on autopilot, vaguely noting the remarkable engineering and sophistication that had been put into crafting them.

The Germans had been there for a long time. Years, probably.

But tonight, no more. 

Her eyes strained as she read the unfamiliar signposts over dugouts, searching for the one the soldier had told her was Captain Blake’s. 

_18_. There it was. 

She pulled open an actual wooden door on hinges to peer inside. 

Though a glowing lantern sat on the small table, next to what looked to be a camp stove, no one else was in the room. 

Bellamy’s pack lay in a heap at the foot of the bed.

The only bed.

Clarke’s mind tiredly dragged itself from one extreme to the other.

Bellamy had never accepted a single-bed dugout before. Had he done so this time because he simply assumed they would sleep side by side, or, on the distant other hand, had he decided he no longer wanted to share a dugout with her at all?

It wasn’t a question Clarke particularly wanted to ponder. She wasn’t even sure she had the brainpower to do so at the moment. 

So instead, she dumped her things by the kitchen table and sank into one of the chairs, leaving her damp, bloodied uniform and boots on. She sat sideways in the chair, leaning back so that her shoulder blades hit the dirt wall. 

Her gaze trailed mindlessly to the flickering lantern. She stared at it, not really seeing. 

She had no idea how long she stayed that way. 

She didn’t even realize Bellamy had entered the room until he was standing directly in front of her, murmuring her name. Repeating it.

“Clarke. _Clarke._ ”

She blinked, the rest of the room coming back into focus.

And he was there, crouched to her eye level, searching her face. For what, she could not fathom.

After a few moments of staring blankly at him, she realized that his face, though badly cut and bruised in some places, had been cleaned up.

“Who...?” She asked, gesturing at his cheek.

“Jackson. He was called into the officer’s meeting to help anyone who needed it while we were debriefed.”

Sighing, Bellamy reached for one of her hands, chafing it between both of his own. She watched it happen silently, almost as if he was moving in slow motion.

“You, on the other hand, look like a nightmare,” he remarked in a low voice. “And you’re freezing. Jesus, Clarke,” he grumbled, touching the back of his hand to her grimy cheek. “You’re too cold. Why don’t we make use of this rare little camp stove, huh?” 

Her eyes roved toward him as he got up and filched a small pot and a canister of water that had been stored on a low shelf by the table. Lighting the stove, he placed the pot of water over it, waiting for it to heat. Confident that the stove was doing its job, his shoulders sagged as he removed his hat, unbuttoned his coat, and pulled off his overshirt and boots, leaving him in only his longjohns and his muddied uniform trousers. 

Clarke didn’t flinch. The two of them didn’t bother hiding from each other as they undressed for bed now; it would only have been a silly pretense, and one neither of them could be bothered to uphold. No, it was something else that Clarke couldn’t help but think was odd. What was he going to do with hot water? Make tea? She nearly laughed. They hadn’t had proper tea rations in months. 

“I. . .I guess I know better than to ask if you’re all right, but you’re not hurt or anything at least, are you?” Bellamy’s brow creased with concern as he tested the water temperature with a fingertip.

Clarke frowned. Hurt? No, she wasn’t hurt. At least, she hadn’t felt any kind of injury. At this point, however, she wasn’t positive that she _would_ have noticed, given all that had gone on.

“I don’t think so,” she replied, having to repeat herself, as the first time she moved her lips, no actual sound had come out. 

“That’s good,” he nodded.

He turned off the stove – _why?_ Clarke wondered, as it hadn’t reached a boil yet – and stooped over his bag, rummaging for something for a moment before pulling out a threadbare rag.

Clarke watched him dip it in the water, not comprehending.

Then, suddenly, he was pulling around the other kitchen chair, setting it down in front of her, and sitting, his knees grazing against hers. 

“Hold still,” he said quietly, and he leaned forward, dripping rag in hand, and gently began to wipe at her face.

On a different day, Clarke would have protested. She wasn’t a baby. She could – and should – absolutely do this herself. 

But not on this day. 

Her eyes fluttered shut as the warm cloth sloughed away at the drying mud, the caked blood of her men on her cheeks, her forehead, her jaw. 

Clarke couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt hot water against her skin. It was like some kind of heavenly treat from a cleaner, happier time gone by.

He dabbed over the tip of her nose, apparently satisfied, and moved to her hands, gently lifting one toward him and ridding her stiff, tired skin of the death, the filth coating her palms and fingers. 

Clarke’s thoughts drifted in wonder at how hands who had so brutally taken the lives of countless men only a few hours ago could now be so gentle, so careful, touching her as if she was made from the thinnest, finest porcelain. 

“Do you regret it, coming onto the field with us?” Bellamy asked quietly after a few minutes of exhausted but companionable silence. 

Clarke turned her gaze back to the safety of the lantern’s small flame.

Did she? Did she wish she’d never agreed to it, and stayed back at a field hospital instead?

“No,” she said honestly, unsure of her answer until it was leaving her lips. 

No, she didn’t regret staying with the unit on the field. She’d had to abandon many men as lost, as already gone, but she’d helped save a lot of them too, and that made it worth it. 

And though she hadn’t been able to do anything about Monty’s life, at least she’d been able to keep him from dying alone. 

She didn’t regret coming along. What she regretted was that this war had ever started.

What was it for? And what was it accomplishing? Nothing but death, in the hundreds of thousands. Three years of slaughter and misery. 

She thought to explain this to Bellamy, but she simply couldn’t summon up the will, the energy to keep talking. Bellamy’s gentle scrubbing against the most tender part of her palm was all she could focus on, and so she let herself focus on it, clinging to the sensation of being cared for.

Apparently satisfied, Bellamy tossed the rag aside and stood. He reached down, grabbing her by her now-clean hands. 

“Stand up,” he asked. Clarke cocked her head at him in confusion. Why? Did he want to dance?

This wasn’t a good time to dance. 

“You need to sleep, Clarke, and you can’t sleep in that. It’s. . .gruesome,” he explained, eyeing her apron doubtfully. Clarke looked down at it. Almost no white was left showing on the once-white, full-length apron.

It was macabre, she acknowledged. 

“It’s been almost two days since you’ve slept. And Clarke…” he trailed off, grimacing. “You’re clearly a bit shell-shocked. And I don’t blame you one bit, but you need to _rest._ Please.” 

Bellamy was right, of course. 

She’d love to sleep right now, if only she could be sure that she wouldn’t dream. 

She stood, dutifully turning around, still distantly feeling a bit embarrassed, a bit childlike. She knew now what he was trying to do, and she was grateful for it. 

If it was left up to her, she’d simply collapse onto the nearest flat surface, ruined uniform and all. 

She felt his hands at her back, near her waist, undoing the buttons and ties of her apron. He gently lifted it over her head and cast it to the floor. 

Through her numbness, she still found that her breath caught as he palmed her waist, slowly turning her back to face him. 

The buttons on her dress trailed two-thirds of the way down its front, over her chest and just past her hips. 

Bellamy’s eyes searched hers, asking silently if he should proceed.

They both knew he ought not, but it seemed that _ought_ and _want_ and _need_ rarely aligned these days. 

She nodded tiredly, her eyes unable to remain on his for long. She let her gaze fall to the floor instead.

Even in her nerveless, nightmarish state, she still lacked the boldness to look him in the eye when he was so near to her, so intimate. 

Bellamy undid the buttons from her neck to her hips as efficiently as he could. After a moment, the unsecured dress fell in a puddle at her feet, and she kicked it aside, bending briefly to remove her filthy boots. 

Quietly, moving as if there was some sort of clandestine, unspoken dance between them, he unfastened the hooks that ran down the front of her corset.

It too fell from her waist, joining her abandoned dress at her feet. 

A beat passed between them, silent, airless. And then his hands circled her waist, warm through the thin cotton, unhindered by the desensitizing boning of her corset.

He was holding her almost as if. . .as if she would disappear if he let her go.

Clarke’s arms wrapped around his middle of their own accord, and she leaned her head against his shoulder, nearly shaking with relief as his warm frame held her up, his arms folding her tight against him. 

“Monty didn’t deserve this,” she whispered, her voice cracking with unshed tears. “None of them did.”

He sighed a shaky breath against her neck. “I know,” he answered, his own voice laced with pain, with sorrow. “I know.”

They stayed there for a while, swaying gently on their feet, tangled in each other. 

Clarke couldn’t remember how or when exactly Bellamy had pulled her to the bed, his arms still around her, but he had, burying them under their blankets, one of her legs trapped between his.

Faintly, she realized she’d just been given the answer to her question about their sleeping quarters.

_Thank god._

Clarke turned her tired head, searching for Bellamy’s face, which had previously been resting over hers, his chin nestled at her hairline. 

His eyes were trained toward the ceiling, and tears leaked from their corners and down into his dark, messy curls. 

“Bellamy.”

His eyes turned slowly down to hers. 

“You’re all right. We’re all right,” she reassured him, not fully believing her own words.

No, they weren’t all right. But they were alive, and they were together, and that was the closest to “all right” that she could imagine right now.

“I killed men face-to-face with my own hands today,” he said flatly, and she could hear effort in his voice to keep it from wavering. “Dozens and dozens of them. And I couldn’t help but think to myself, ‘how are they any better or worse than I am? Why do I get to decide that they must die?’ And I _hate it,_ Clarke. I just went out there, and I killed some other mother’s, some other sweetheart’s Monty. I watched them die by my own bayonet blade. And I-” his voice cracked, and he stopped, trying to regain control. He squeezed her tighter against him, his arm wrapping around her back. “I can’t help but think over and over about what I am – a _monster_.”

Clarke’s heart squeezed painfully in her chest, aching for him. Not a day went by where she wasn’t grateful that she was there to do the healing, not the killing. She couldn’t imagine her duty being simply to slaughter the other man before she herself was slaughtered. 

“Bellamy, you did what you had to do,” she whispered, her body slowly waking up, warming as she lay against him. “If you hadn’t killed them, you know that they would have killed you all the same in a moment with no second thought. You were protecting yourself and your men. You were doing what you _needed_ to do.”

“Doing what you’re _supposed_ to do shouldn’t feel this bad,” he croaked. 

“It isn’t fair,” Clarke agreed, burying her face against his collarbone. “I think we’ll all be trying to forgive and forget ourselves for a long time after this, Bellamy. But for now, we just need to stay alive, all right? Keep pushing on through.”

Clarke could feel sleep tugging at her consciousness, begging her to succumb. She was warm now, safe in Bellamy’s arms. Here, she was understood. She was cared for, in the midst of careless chaos. 

And she wanted Bellamy to feel that way too.

She lifted her chin to lay a kiss on the underside of his jaw, and her lips lingered there longer than they should have. She pressed the bridge of her nose against the soft skin there, nuzzling into him.

“We have to keep going on,” Clarke breathed, her voice thick with exhaustion. Earlier, Clarke wasn’t sure she would have said so. But now, here with him, it felt the tiniest bit easier to want to carry on in the world. 

The last thing she felt was his hand gently tracing patterns over the curve of her waist before she succumbed, sleep finally dragging her under. 

… 

_**June, 1917** _

“Mail!” 

Seconds later, a pair of letters slid underneath the dugout’s wooden door. 

“I’ll get it,” Bellamy announced, setting down his dinner. It was a good meal day – some bully beef and pea soup. 

Clarke lifted her eyebrows in acknowledgment from her side of the table, nibbling indifferently on a turnip-flour biscuit. The waves around her face had escaped her hairpins, and she looked soft, golden in the lamplight. Bellamy had to stop himself from turning back to stare as he traipsed over to gather up the letters. 

“One for each,” he declared, tossing Clarke’s onto the table in front of her. 

“Mine’s from my mother,” Clarke read, dusting off her hands and ripping open the seal. “Octavia?” She guessed, nodding toward his. 

“The one and only,” he replied, sliding his finger under the sealed edge. 

Bellamy looked up to see Clarke’s eyebrows climbing toward her hairline as she perused her letter. He nudged her stockinged foot with his own under the table. 

“Read it to me,” he teased, knowing she would share. The two of them always read their letters aloud to each other lately – it was one of the only sources of entertainment they had, other than listening to the boys outside tell dark jokes, humor black enough to help them cope with the horrors of their own reality. 

“It’s vomit-inducing, so pardon me if I gag,” she said dryly, clearing her throat. “‘ _Dear Clarke – I’m so glad to receive word that you got through Vimy Ridge safely. Oh, did we hear all about it in the papers! All of the Canadian divisions, banding together for victory. What an inspiration it has been for this country, though I am sorry you are at the front to witness all the lives lost to have made it possible. I do hope this victory turns the tide for the Allies.’”_

Bellamy frowned. “Seems harmless enough,” he noted, wondering what had caused Clarke to make faces at the missive. 

“Oh, it gets worse,” Clarke said grimly, glancing back down to find where she’d left off. 

“‘ _I can’t believe you’ve crossed paths with-’_ here, she crosses out ‘Marcus’ and corrects it with ‘Colonel Kane’. ‘ _He was such a lovely patient when he was recuperating here in Halifax, always courteous and helpful to us nurses. Do tell him I said hello if you meet him again, won’t you? He isn’t one to easily be forgotten. In fact, he’s promised to visit whenever he’s next in Halifax. Is that not terribly kind of him?’”_

Here, Clarke made a face, sticking out her tongue with distaste. Bellamy bit back a laugh. 

“She gets so carried away that she forgets to say much more, other than for us to be safe and write often,” Clarke remarked, setting aside the letter. 

“At least she seems more cheerful than she did in her last letter,” Bellamy remarked. “She sounded so blue that you couldn’t come home for Christmas last winter.” 

“Well, she’s certainly more cheerful, because she’s absolutely _smitten._ ” Clarke rolled her eyes. “I suppose Colonel Kane is handsome enough, but still.”

“He’s not your father,” Bellamy said in a more solemn tone, understanding. 

Clarke shook her head tiredly. “No, he isn’t.” She sighed, fiddling with the corner of the letter. “Though I suppose now more than ever I cannot begrudge my mother any happiness. Who knows how fleeting it might be. Given how this year is going, she might never see the colonel again anyhow.”

Bellamy winced. Clarke was right – there was no guarantee that any of them would ever see the shores of Canada again. 

Clarke bit her lip, clearly trying to shrug off the gloom of the topic. “Your turn. What does Octavia have to say?”

Bellamy unfolded his own letter, unable to keep from smiling at the familiar, chaotic scrawl of his sister’s hand. 

In fact, it seemed even messier than usual. 

“I should have made her focus more on her penmanship when she was younger,” Bellamy griped, squinting at the letter. “She says: ‘ _Dear brother: I cannot tell you how relieved I was to hear that you emerged not only victorious, but safe and sound, alive and ready to come home to me again someday. Unfortunately, it is with the heaviest of hearts that I–’”_ Bellamy’s voice cracked as he broke off, his eyes moving faster than his lips could across the page. He cleared his throat. “‘ _–I must tell you that Lincoln will never be able to do the same. I have received word that he was killed in action, on the very same field where you fought so bravely. I am sure that he fought just as bravely; however, he was not so lucky._ ’”

Here, Bellamy noticed the smudges on the page, the round water stains. Tear drops. 

His heart ached for his sister, for a man he’d never known. 

Suddenly, he felt Clarke’s hand over his, her fingers warm, clasping his own in silent solidarity. 

He clenched his jaw and read on for the both of them. “‘ _I was told that he is buried there, at Vimy, that he will be memorialized as a hero alongside his fellow soldiers. While those words are beautiful, to be sure, I must say that I would have endlessly preferred that he had been a coward, and here with me now instead.’”_

More tear stains. Bellamy’s breath caught in his throat.

“‘ _I must tell you that, as I am no longer waiting here for my love to return, I have decided to move with Harper’s family to New York. The city is bustling, and full of promises of things to occupy my body and mind. Toronto now feels like a ghost town, and out on its streets, all I see are the places I walked with Lincoln, never to be visited by the two of us again. The change will be a welcome one. I will forward you my address there once we have settled. All my love, Octavia.’”_

Bellamy’s eyes flickered downward to the postscript.

“Is that all she says?” Clarke half-whispered, her face drawn in concern.

Skimming the postscript, Bellamy nodded.

“How dreadful,” Clarke murmured, her thumb rubbing a nonsense pattern over the back of his hand.

As he read his sister’s final words – the postscript he hadn’t shared with Clarke – the touch of her hand on his nearly made him dizzy. 

_P.S. – Bellamy, I cannot tell you how much pain there is in losing one you love to this terrible war before you feel their time has come. I only say this as a warning to you, for, yes, I can read between the lines of all of your letters. I know that there is one that you love, just as I loved Lincoln. Bellamy, you must cherish her, the time you have with her. Tell her you love her, before it’s too late. She deserves to know, and you deserve to be known. Tell her._

His heart rubbed raw, his eyes rose to meet Clarke’s across the table. Her gaze was on him, soft, unwavering, sympathetic. She squeezed his hand inside hers.

Octavia was right. Bellamy did love her.

He was in love with her. 

Desperately so.

He’d known this for some time, but it was something he kept buried deep, tucked away for a time that felt better than this. He wondered sometimes if such a time would ever exist. 

Was his sister right? Should he confess it? 

Bellamy wasn’t so sure. 

There were too many possibilities, so many reasons not to.

What if Clarke didn’t feel the same way? What if she left his dugout, never to sleep by his side again? What if things worked out, but one of them got dishonorably discharged for inappropriate conduct? Or, worst of all: what if one of them died, and left the other with nothing but a broken heart?

Bellamy’s heart twisted in his chest, grieving for his sister’s lost happiness, refusing to grapple with his own desires. 

He wasn’t going to think about this. Not right now.

“Are you sad that she’s leaving Toronto?” Clarke asked, finally pulling her hand from his as she got up from the table to prepare for bed. “I know that’s been your home for so long.”

Bellamy thought for a moment, searching himself for any yearning for the place he’d grown up.

“You know, I don’t think so. My mother and Octavia are what made Toronto home, and now neither of them are there anymore.” Bellamy folded the letter carefully and got up to tuck it onto the shelf by the wall. “I’m sad that she’s going stateside, of course, because I had hoped to stay in Canada, but she’s always been headstrong. She will go where she pleases, and I know I’d never be able to stop her.”

“Where will you go, then, afterward? To New York, with her?” Clarke tugged off her uniform and replaced it with her nightshift. Something about her voice was oddly stiff.

Bellamy shrugged as he made preparations of his own for sleep. “I don’t know, actually. I’ll visit her, of course. It feels like playing with fire to make any permanent plans for ‘afterward’ right now.” 

“I know,” Clarke said grimly, tugging a thick-knit sweater over her shift and pulling the pins from her hair, letting it fall in messy golden curtains down her shoulders. Though it was June, the nights were still chilly, exacerbated by the cool, cave-like dirt walls of the dugout. 

As Clarke tucked herself against his shoulder, drawing the thick blankets up over them, Bellamy tried to picture himself in the future. 

He struggled to do it. All he’d known for over two years now was the dirt walls of trenches, the filth and blood of the battlefield. Constant, crushing loss. 

And love. Love that had no place in this war.

He leaned over Clarke to extinguish the lantern, pitching them into darkness. 

… 

_Boom._

The crack of a gunshot, very loud and very nearby, startled Clarke awake, her heart pounding with alarm in her chest. 

She felt Bellamy’s body tense beneath hers.

They could both tell that the sound of that gunfire wasn’t from the barrel of some distant enemy rifle.

It had come from inside the trenches.

Their trench, to be exact.

“Stay here,” his voice rumbled in his chest beneath her, rough with sleep. “I’ll go check it out.”

Bellamy shrugged into his uniform coat as he slipped through the door and into the gray light of the dawn.

Bleary-eyed, but anxious, Clarke swung her legs over the side of the bed. 

Bellamy had said to stay here, and she knew he meant well, but she didn’t take orders from Bellamy.

Besides, where there was gunfire, there were usually bullet wounds.

She skipped her underskirts and hastily buttoned up her less filthy uniform dress.

She was in the middle of tying her boots when the voices came. 

“Oh my god,” Miller shouted from somewhere beyond the door.

“ _Clarke!”_ Little Bernie’s voice screeched frantically.

Abandoning her laces, she ran out the door, her hair flying about her shoulders in an unkempt mess. 

As Clarke stumbled into the trench corridor, she nearly stepped on an army-issue pistol. 

Blinking down at it, her gaze shifted left, toward the limp, outstretched hand that must have been holding the gun before it hit the ground.

Clarke’s heart thumped sluggishly as her gaze landed on the face that belonged to the body. 

Blank, lifeless, unseeing eyes. 

A sharp nose. Slack jaw. Dark, ruffled hair. Olive skin. 

Jasper.

“C-Clarke, we gotta do something!” Bernie cried, on his knees next to the body. 

Bellamy knelt next to him. He put a hand to Bernie’s shaking shoulder. “It’s too late, Bernie,” he said roughly. “Nothing left to be done.”

Clarke heard the hollowness in his voice. She felt it in her own bones. 

A pool of blood puddled under Jasper’s head, gathering under his shattered skull. 

He’d shot himself. 

Clarke’s blood didn’t freeze in her veins. It slowed, trickled, gradually took on a chill. 

Jasper, dead by his own hand. 

Almost three years of escaping the bullets of others, only to lose his life to his own.

It was so needless. So senseless. 

Clarke knew that he had a mother, a father, a little sister who dearly loved him, who prayed for him to come home to Prince Edward Island with each passing day. 

Bile rose in her throat. She swallowed determinedly, refusing to let her stomach empty itself right here and now. 

She crouched by the body, her faded blue skirts gathering around her. 

His hand was still warm as she folded it inside hers.

He’d made it so far alongside her and Bellamy. And yet.

And yet, he’d suffered in the trenches, day in, day out. Losing Murphy. Hearing that Finn had died in no man’s land. Watching Monty, his best friend, die right before his eyes.

She supposed he’d decided he just couldn’t take any more of it. That it was his turn to return to the earth, to hope he would find peace in whatever lay beyond.

To think that he felt that pain so acutely to lead him to this choice made her heart twist achingly in her chest. 

“Someone. . .someone needs to go alert the body collectors,” she said, almost unable to recognize her own voice leaving her lips. 

Silently, two soldiers near the back of the gathered unit turned away, disappearing around the corner of the trench. Next to Bellamy, Bernie clutched his knees in his hands, weeping, tears rolling down his cheeks without a sound. 

“Everyone, clear out, all right? No need for anyone to stick around here. Go find your breakfast. Take a break.”

Bellamy’s voice was thin but firm as he waved off the circle of men that surrounded them. The air was heavy, gloomy as the crowd slowly broke up. Clarke watched Bellamy wince as he removed Jasper’s ID tags, trying not to drag the chain through the puddle of blood on the ground beneath his head. 

“Bernie, why don’t you take his tags and send them in a letter to his family? Check his pack, I’m sure their return address is on one of his letters in there.” Bellamy patted the younger soldier on the back, holding out the thin silver chain to him. 

“Yes, Captain Blake,” Bernie nodded, taking the tags with a wet sniffle and clambering slowly to his feet. 

Clarke let Jasper’s hand fall from hers, and she averted her eyes from his pale, blankly-staring face. She could hardly stand to look at it anymore. She felt more ill by the minute. 

She wished she could hunt down the Kaiser himself and make him pay for all that had happened. 

She realized, suddenly, that the only place she wanted to be was in Bellamy’s arms, held tight, her face turned away from the world and into the warmth of his chest, his heartbeat the only sound in her ear. She wished for the oblivion of sleep in his soft, strong arms – for sleep until the war was over. 

Clarke shook herself mentally. It was weak of her to think such things. 

She knew when she’d signed up for this that she wouldn’t be able to save everyone. That she wouldn’t even be able to save _most_ of them. 

But she hadn’t been prepared for this. She’d been prepared to watch men die fighting for their country – not to take their own lives because they couldn’t stand to fight anymore. 

Bullet wounds, she could try to fix. But despair? She didn’t even know where to begin.

Right now, Clarke felt sickeningly, overwhelmingly helpless, and she couldn’t stand herself because of it. 

She felt Bellamy’s eyes on her. She couldn’t meet them. She knew that if she did, she would crack. She would break. 

Two body collectors carrying a stretcher rounded the corner, their faces a bit more unsettled than usual. They were used to bodies broken by battle. Not this. 

Clarke turned away, unwilling to watch them lift the body, to carry Jasper off for the last time. She didn’t want her final memory of him to be like this. 

“I’ve got to get dressed before I head down to the field hospital,” Clarke muttered, not looking at Bellamy as she shouldered past him and back into the dugout. 

Today was supposed to have been a more relaxed day for her – no specific duties assigned. She’d planned to rest, to catch up on writing to her mother, to wash her spare uniform. 

She no longer felt that she could pass the day with such idle tasks. They left so much room for her mind to wander, to fixate, to dwell on things that hurt to dwell on.

So she would go to the field hospital. Spend 12 hours on her feet, tending to immobilized, broken soldiers, dressing their wounds and wiping their brows and sewing their stitches. 

She could be useful there. She would have to use her mind to think about what she was doing instead of leaving it to roam. 

She heard the door swing open and shut behind her as she was tying her apron.

“Clarke, why don’t you stay here? Get some sleep. It was your day off,” Bellamy said quietly, his voice crackling with fatigue.

“I don’t think so,” Clarke replied brusquely, her back still to him. Cinching her apron, she grabbed her medical kit and turned around, preparing to head out. “The hospital could always use more hands. Who am I to deny them a pair?”

“Clarke,” Bellamy said again, a note of pleading in his voice. “Are you all right? I’m-”

“I’m fine,” she said, not meeting his gaze as she pushed past him and out the door.

To his credit, he didn’t follow her, didn’t press the issue.

She knew she shouldn’t be so sharp with him. She didn’t even _want_ to be. But her only other option right now was to be vulnerable, and she didn’t think she could stand that. Not today. Not after what she’d just seen. 

Gritting her teeth, she marched over the muddied duckboards, heading away from the front lines and toward the field hospital that was stationed a mile or two back. 

… 

Bellamy wove in and out of the trench corridors, following them from the front lines all the way to the back.

Toward the field hospital.

It was nearly dark. The sun had set a quarter of an hour ago, which, given the month, meant that it was already past ten at night. 

And Clarke still hadn’t come back. She’d missed lunch, missed dinner. 

Bellamy stepped carefully past the men resting, past those clambering up the sides of the trenches to do repair work under the cover of darkness. Fleeting, flickering lamplight was all he had to guide his way. 

He wasn’t ready to rest. He wasn’t ready to close his eyes and once again see the body of Jasper sprawled on the trench floor, resting in a pool of his own blood.

By his own hand.

Bellamy was sick with it. Quite literally. This morning, he’d had to excuse himself to the latrines to cough back up his meager breakfast. 

Bellamy knew what it was like to feel hopeless. To feel as if what they were doing, what they’d been doing for years now was senseless slaughter and ruin. 

But at the end of the day, he still tried to cling to hope that one day it would end. That he would go back across the Atlantic for good, visit his sister and restart his own life. 

He couldn’t imagine carrying on if he’d completely lost sight of that hope, even slim as it was. 

Jasper had been with him since he’d landed back in France in the spring of 1915. So long ago, now. Eons ago.

Bellamy’s heart was broken for him. 

To lose Monty and Jasper in such quick succession. . .it was agonizing.

He knew it had broken Clarke’s heart too. He’d known it the second he’d seen it dawn on her face this morning when she’d followed him out of the dugout. 

And he knew her well enough now to know that she was hiding in her work. Losing herself in her work. Bellamy sometimes worried she’d push herself to collapse with exhaustion, just to avoid the crushing reality of every new death in their unit. 

And he couldn’t let her do that. 

As the months had passed, as the number of battles, of casualties had climbed, Bellamy had watched Clarke grow more and more guarded, more closed off. He understood why. To fully feel each and every death, each loss that couldn’t be saved – the human body could not take it. It would collapse in on itself with grief, entirely unable to function.

She was trying to protect herself. Trying to push through. She didn’t want to show her feelings, not only because she couldn’t bear to feel them, but because she couldn’t bear anyone to see. Despite the fact that she was now a veteran medic, she was still the only female trench medic in the division. Apparently, the nursing programs and the army had decided against expanding their trial run. 

As a medic, Clarke was not alone. But as a woman, she very much was. 

She was tough. She didn’t need Bellamy to come to her rescue. All of the men respected her now, were happy to have her with them. 

And besides, what Bellamy wanted to protect her from he most was the thing it was impossible to shield her against. 

Things like what they’d seen this morning. 

But he couldn’t let her work herself to death, try to drown her grief in tending to others until she fell to her knees. 

This was one thing he could pull her back from.

Reaching the end of the line, Bellamy climbed out of the trenches, pausing as he heard a rumble of thunder overhead. The weather was growing warmer, and summer storms often set in during the afternoons and at night. He could already smell the dampness of the earth that always accompanied the rain.

In a way, it was peaceful to hear the thunderclaps, to know that it was nature causing a racket and not man-made weaponry for once. 

He ducked under a canvas flap, scanning the tent for her blonde head. 

_There she was._ Her back was to him as she stood in front of the wash basins, her shoulders slumped, her back curved with fatigue.

“Can I help you, captain?” One of the head nurses approached him, wiping her palms on her soiled apron and pushing back escaped strands of her chestnut hair, which was beginning to gray at the temple. 

“Yes, I’m just here to escort Nurse Griffin back to her unit,” Bellamy nodded, gesturing in Clarke’s direction.

The nurse’s expression softened. “Ah, yes. Please do. She’s been here for nearly 16 hours now. I keep telling her to go back, but she insists on staying. I don’t think her spirit is well today, captain.”

Bellamy grimaced. “One of our men took his own life this morning, just as the sun was rising. We found him lying in the trench.”

The nurse frowned in sympathy. “How ghastly. I’m terribly sorry. Not the type of tragedy one is used to hearing about around here, of course.”

Bellamy nodded, his chest tightening. He didn’t feel much like talking more about it. “Well, I’ll be off with her then,” he gestured toward Clarke. “Better that we head out before the storm arrives.”

The nurse patted his sleeve in a kind way, one that Bellamy appreciated. It was hard for the field hospital nurses not to harden themselves, as Clarke was trying to do. To keep compassion out as a coping mechanism and an attempt to retain their sanity. Bellamy didn’t know if this head nurse was newly arrived, or just quite special. 

Bellamy strode across the trampled grass, weaving through the hospital beds toward Clarke, who was still standing at the wash station. 

“Clarke,” he said gently, trying not to startle her. He noticed she was wringing out bloodied linens. She didn’t look up.

He reached out to touch her sleeve. 

“ _Clarke,_ ” he said again, rubbing a thumb against her elbow. “It’s past ten. The head nurse said to go home. We should leave before the storm hits, all right?”

She tossed the last rag aside, sighing. She poured a bit of clean water over her own hands and dried them off on her apron, her movements slow and betraying her exhaustion. 

“Let’s go, then,” she said tiredly, still not meeting his eye. 

As they ducked under the tent flap to descend back into the trenches, another crack of thunder bounced off the air around them, louder than it had been before. 

He stepped into the trench first, lifting his arm to hand her down. She took it, but still did not meet his gaze.

He bit back a sigh and started walking, keeping pace just in front of her. More than once, he had to adjust the speed of his gait. Clearly, she was too fatigued to keep up at her normal pace. 

About a third of the way back to the front lines, he heard her footsteps stop behind them.

“Bellamy,” she whispered, her voice cracking. 

He stopped, hastily turning toward her as stormy gusts whipped across him, ruffling his hair and trying to carry off his hat. 

“I can’t see,” she croaked, and as he stepped toward her, he saw that her eyes were filled with tears – overflowing with them. They ran down her cheeks profusely, dripping onto her collar. “I can’t,” she repeated. 

A vise wrapped itself around Bellamy’s chest, squeezing painfully. The sight of Clarke’s tears, on top of all that had happened, nearly caused some of his own to prickle at his eyelids. 

His heart broke for Jasper. His heart broke for her.

“I’ll get you back,” he murmured, reaching for her hand and entwining his fingers through hers. With his other hand, he reached up to thumb tears away from her cheek, and a gasping sob caught in her throat. “Don’t worry.”

Slowly, he led them back to their camp, grateful for the nearly oppressive darkness thanks to the deepening night and the imminent storm. No one could see well enough to make out the two of them as they passed each unit by. 

Just as they were only half a mile away from their dugout, the bottom fell out of the skies above them. 

The rain was cool and wildly heavy, blowing nearly sideways in the blustering wind. 

“Almost there,” Bellamy called back to her, though he was fairly sure she couldn’t hear him. He squeezed her hand in his.

Bellamy spit out rainwater as he whisked them inside the door, slamming it quickly behind them before the wind and rain blew it wide open. 

The two of them stood there in the dimly-lit dugout, their clothes dripping onto the floor, as rolling cracks of thunder bellowed outside. 

“Clarke,” Bellamy began, knowing he had to say something.

“Please don’t start, Bellamy,” she begged tiredly, slowly removing her apron and wringing it out. The rainwater drenching her face had covered her tears, all of it blending together.

“I’m sorry, Clarke, but you can’t keep doing this. You’re going to hurt yourself if you keep pushing like that. 16-hour shifts? On a day that needed to be your day off? That won’t help anything.”

“It will,” she bit out, her arms crossing defensively across her chest. “It helps the wounded. You can’t say that it doesn’t.”

“You _know_ you can’t work properly if you’re too exhausted to function,” Bellamy retorted, taken aback by her shortness with him. The two of them never fought, not since those first few months together had passed and they’d truly begun to understand each other. 

“I have to do what I can, Bellamy,” she replied, a desperate urgency shading her tone. She reached down to unlace her boots and toss them aside, hiding her face from him. “I have to do what I can if I want to be able to live with myself,” she continued, her voice shaking now. 

The sound of the tremble in her voice sent him crumbling. He walked nearer to her, closing the distance. She bit down on her lip, worrying the spot she always worried with her teeth, drawing blood. She wheeled away, turning her back to him. 

“Clarke, you’re doing the best you can,” he said softly, half-afraid if he moved or kept talking that she would run away from him and out into the stormy night. 

“It doesn’t matter, Bellamy,” he heard her choke out after a moment. “No matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, everyone keeps dying on me. I _can’t save them_. And I feel so helpless because of it. I _can’t_ –” her voice cracked, a sob breaking her off, and she fell silent, her shoulders shaking with soundless weeping. 

Bellamy fully closed the distance between them, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind and resting his chin over her shoulder.

Holding her bones together so she wouldn’t fall apart. 

She began to cry again, her soaked body shuddering in his arms. 

She did not push him away.

“It’s not your job to save everyone, Clarke,” he murmured in her ear. “Just to save who you can. That’s all. I promise.”

“It’s – it just never feels like enough,” she wheezed, tilting her head so that her forehead pressed against his neck, her wet hair grazing his jawline. “I’m so tired. And I feel so wrong for wishing that we could just pack up right now and get on the first ship home and never come back.”

 _We?_ Bellamy shook his head. “Shh, shh. That’s not wrong, Clarke. We all wish that. Every single man in this trench.”

She wiggled out of his arms and turned to face him. “I know I should want to stay and help,” she muttered, her voice still watery. “And I _do_ want to help. But the burden – the burden it places on one’s spirit after years of this, after years of never knowing when it’ll end…”

“I know, Clarke. God, I know.” Bellamy lifted his cap, throwing it haphazardly onto the table and running a hand through his hair anxiously. 

He suddenly became aware that he was exhausted himself. And quite cold, soaked to the skin with rainwater. 

“We should change and hang these to dry if we want clean clothes tomorrow,” he said, abruptly changing the subject, his brain so fatigued and overwhelmed that it felt like it was short-circuiting.

Hesitantly, Clarke nodded, agreeing, and they turned away from each other, keeping out of each other’s line of sight as they stripped to the skin and hastily pulled on their nightclothes. 

Clarke took his uniform from his hands and busied herself with hanging their soaked uniforms on a rack in the corner of the kitchen. Watching her listlessly, Bellamy sank into one of the kitchen chairs, numb.

Slowly, Clarke came to stand in front of him, her eyes drooping and difficult to read. Bellamy’s sluggish heart jumped into his throat when she leaned over him and stooped to press a kiss on top of his head, her hands braced on his shoulders. 

“Thank you for coming to get me,” Clarke whispered, the golden strands of her hair damp and swaying in front of his face. 

Before he could think too much about it, his hands were wrapping around her waist, pulling her sideways so that she was sitting across his lap.

He half expected her to protest, but she merely gazed at him for a moment, her eyes red and sorrowful, before kissing his cheek and lowering her head against his shoulder, her face tucked into his neck. 

Breathing deeply, Bellamy cradled her closer, one arm wrapping around her back, the other coming to rest over her hip. The weight of her on him was unexpectedly soothing, and the warmth of her body against his chest nearly pulled him under like some kind of drug. 

“How do you still have hope, Bellamy?” She said after a while, her voice thin, hushed. “Won’t we all feel like Jasper, in the end? Some days it seems like I already do.”

Her words twisted in his chest, and his hand rose to brush through her hair, gently tucking it behind her ear. He couldn’t stand to let his imagination continue down that path – to think of Clarke reaching the point that Jasper had, of even thinking of doing what he did. It made him feel sick all over again. 

“We’re still breathing, aren’t we?” He finally answered, rubbing his palm over her back. “We’ve made it this far. I have to believe we’ll make it to the other side of this thing.” 

Bellamy waited for an answer. After a moment, he listened close, noticing her breathing had evened out to a more relaxed rhythm, free of any remaining shudders or sobs. 

She’d fallen asleep. 

He hoped that her dreams were more peaceful than her waking world.

Standing carefully, he extinguished the lantern and wrapped his other hand beneath her knees, holding her to his chest as he walked them to the bed. He laid her down as lightly as he could, trying his best not to wake her as he climbed into bed next to her, covering them both with blankets. 

His own eyes began to droop, and he was nearly asleep when he felt her roll up against him, tucking her hands against his chest. 

He reached down to grasp one, pulling it to his lips and kissing her knuckles before he closed his eyes, letting himself dissolve into sleep, comforted by the warmth of Clarke’s hands pressed over his heart. 

… 

_**November, 1917** _

The late autumn wind bit into Clarke’s uniform as she and Bellamy walked across a trampled field, up to their ankles in mud, as they had been for days now. 

“We’ll check for any survivors first, make sure no one’s wounded, and then we’ll look for supplies, all right?” Clarke spoke up, her hoarse voice nearly lost on the breeze beneath the cloudy, cool-gray sky.

It had taken the Allies months, but they’d finally seized the southern ridges of Ypres, a pursuit they’d been fighting at harrowingly since July. They were now poised to push into Flanders.

The 1st Canadian division had only arrived a few weeks ago, along with the other Canadian divisions, with the intent to relieve the exhausted, depleted Anzac corps, who’d been fighting in the mud for weeks, losing hundreds of men to the relentless swamp that was no man’s land. It was the Canadian corps’ turn to add to the body count now – a body count that had risen into the hundreds of thousands over the past few months. 

It had been the dirtiest battle Clarke had seen yet. Literally. She couldn’t remember any other time in her life when she’d been so completely caked with mud. 

After the village – a little place called Passchendaele – and the ridge had finally been captured yesterday, she’d worked all night, tending to the wounded, searching anxiously for Bellamy’s face amongst them, sick with worry. It hadn’t been till nearly dawn that she’d found him, mercifully unscathed but nearly unrecognizable under the mud.

Bellamy, in a rare moment of slyness, had used his officer’s standing to get him and Clarke half a day off to clean up and go on a supply mission. The field hospital was hopelessly low on clean linen, and the conquered village down the road was mostly empty now, and perhaps had some things that could be pillaged for a good cause. 

Clarke was deeply grateful for the time off, especially the bath, but the water had been so cold it had been impossible to enjoy. By the time she’d finished scrubbing down, her teeth were chattering uncontrollably. 

As they drew closer to the village, Clarke began to make out just how much it had been devastated in the tug-of-war between sides. 

So ruined, in fact, that it was no longer recognizable as a village.

Everything standing had been smashed to smithereens, reduced to rubble.

The only thing left standing was part of the small cathedral’s bell tower, and maybe half of one of its walls.

They would find no supplies here.

Very likely no survivors, either.

She heard Bellamy’s sharp intake of breath next to her. 

“We should check for any remaining villagers, just in case,” Clarke finally said, nudging his arm.

“Stay close to me,” he answered, keeping his body between her and the destroyed town center. 

Silently, they walked around the rubble, keeping an ear out for any cries, an eye out for any movement. 

They found nothing. 

It was so quiet that it made Clarke’s skin crawl. 

“Let’s check over there. If there’s nothing, we can call it quits.” She gestured toward the crumbling bell tower, the only structure that still had what more-or-less amounted to four walls. 

The constant rain that had made the battlefield so muddy in the first place was threatening to return, the clouds darkening overhead. The wind picked up, a gust of it whipping a good portion of Clarke’s hair out of the ribbon she’d used to hastily tie it up. 

They hurried inside, stepping around the piles of broken stone and debris. In the corner stood a warped, dirty votive candle stand, its brass bars bent and cracked. The air that hung around them was heavy, silent. Though the church had been destroyed, the gravity within its walls remained.

“It feels strange to be somewhere so quiet and alone, doesn’t it?” Clarke asked, leaning to rest a palm against the cool gray stones that made up the remains of the wall. “I can’t remember the last time we were this far away from other people.”

“It’s eerie,” he agreed, his low voice echoing up through the ruined tower.

Clarke sighed. “There’s nothing here,” she said, announcing the obvious. Annoyed that her hair kept fluttering into her face, she pulled out the ribbon, letting it all fall around her shoulders as she prepared to re-do it. 

“Let me,” Bellamy said suddenly, surprising her. He stepped carefully around the fallen stones, sidling up behind her. 

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” Clarke asked, hiding the butterflies in her stomach behind skepticism that she didn’t feel particularly attached to.

“I had to do my little sister’s hair all the time when she was growing up,” Bellamy answered. “Nothing fancy, but I know my way around a braid.”

Clarke’s breath caught in her throat as she felt his fingers run through her hair, gently picking up pieces of it as he twined the strands together. 

There was no good reason for him to be doing this. Why was he doing this? She shouldn’t have agreed to it.

But there was no world in which she could turn down the feeling of his fingertips brushing across the nape, the sensitive sides of her neck as he worked. 

Her eyes fell shut, and she was intensely grateful that he could not see her face from where he stood, looming over her from behind, his hands impossibly gentle for a hardened, weathered army captain at war. 

He tapped her shoulder, and she wordlessly handed the ribbon off to him, waiting as he looped it around the tail of her braid.

“There,” he said quietly, rubbing the top of her shoulder. 

Clarke was about to turn around to thank him when she felt his knuckles graze the back of her neck, gently pushing her braid over one shoulder.

And then Bellamy’s mouth was on her skin, pressing a kiss to the back of her neck where it sloped down to meet her collarbone. 

His lips were soft, warm. So incredibly unexpected.

She didn’t dare move. She didn’t _breathe_. 

There was a line, drawn somewhere in the sand by the war, by the extraordinary circumstances they endlessly found themselves in.

And right now, Bellamy’s lips were crossing it. 

She nearly felt dizzy with want at the touch. She wanted his mouth there, at her neck, but also on her cheeks, on her throat, on her lips too. 

Here she was, in the ruins of a village, on the front lines of a raging, desperate war, and all she could think about was turning around, holding Bellamy Blake’s face in her hands, and kissing him until they couldn’t breathe anymore. 

“Bellamy,” his name escaped her lips, half-moan, half-prayer. 

She felt his hand clasp her waist, holding her close, as his lips moved up her neck toward her ear. 

The sound of a cocked pistol made her heart stop in her chest. 

_“Beweg dich nicht!”_ The sound of a voice ripped through the air. Clarke knew it was not French. 

It could not be an ally. 

Bellamy’s lips left her neck, exposing her skin to the cold air, but his arm wrapped around her tighter, shielding her body with his own. 

Sickening dread pooled in her stomach as she turned to look. 

An entire squad of German soldiers poured in around them, their weapons aimed unwaveringly at Bellamy and Clarke. 

There were ten Germans, and two of them. 

Clarke knew then that there was no possible way they came out the victors of the situation. 

It was over. They were done for. 

Bellamy had drawn his weapon, but she knew if he fired, they’d both be gunned down in less than a second.

He knew it too. 

One of the soldiers screamed at them again, gesturing toward Bellamy’s drawn pistol.

They were telling him to drop his weapon. 

His arm shook as he kept it extended, the pistol aloft in his hand.

“Bellamy, there’s no way,” Clarke whispered, her voice breaking. “There’s no way.”

“I know,” he finally replied, his voice gravelly as he spoke through gritted teeth. 

After a few more agonizing moments, he slowly kneeled down, stepping fully in front of her, and laid his pistol on the broken stones, his other hand kept high in the air. 

The German squad swarmed, surrounding them, binding their wrists together with rough, scratchy rope. One of them yanked Clarke’s trench knife from the belt at her waist and shoved it inside his own, barking in derision. 

“A woman with a knife,” he laughed in accented English, squinting down at her. “Funny.”

“Let her go, she’s a medic,” Bellamy pleaded, shouting over the commotion. “Look at the cross on her uniform. Don’t hurt her. _Please_ , just don’t hurt her.”

The desperate sound of Bellamy’s voice made her stomach drop.

_This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening._

“You are both prisoners now,” the man spoke again gruffly. With an unfriendly push, he ushered them forward, their bound wrists each held by a soldier, the rest of them surrounding them in a tight, inescapable circle as they headed out. 

“Scream, and we will shoot you,” another one of the soldiers said in English, his accent even thicker. 

Clarke panted anxiously, trying to keep up with their relentless pace toward the forest. She peered across the village ruins.

No one was around them for a few miles, at least. 

Her gaze roving wildly, she turned her head, meeting Bellamy’s eyes. 

They were wide and dark with defeat, blinking rapidly in the cold air.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured brokenly, and the soldier behind him elbowed him hard in the back, urging him onward. 

Clarke’s heart sank into the pit of her hollow stomach.

There was no way out of this. 

It was all over now. Over for them both.

She bit down on her lip, eager for the familiar taste of blood to distract her as she tried not to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Sorry this is later than usual -- this chapter was both really rewarding and really difficult to write and edit. Thanks so, SO much to everyone who's left kudos and commented, it means so much to me. I hope you like it, and let me know what you think! 
> 
> Also, my tumblr is @saintbellamys, I made a matching gifset for this fic and occasionally scream into the void about the show so if that's your thing, come hang out.


	4. Of Fire and Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The German soldier tilted his head at Bellamy. 'You love her,' he said quietly. A statement, not a question. 
> 
> Bellamy stilled, his back to her. He said nothing. Clarke’s heart leapt into her throat."
> 
> ///
> 
> Bellamy and Clarke fight for their lives and for each other as winter turns to spring.

* * *

_In which our heroes fight to survive, a debt is called in, and something beloved goes up in flames_

* * *

_**November, 1917** _

The hard, roughly-hewn wooden wall at Bellamy’s back was beginning to make him ache as he slumped back against it. The dirt floor beneath him was cool, damp, uncomfortable beneath his uniform pants. The skin around his wrists was rubbed raw from where the German soldiers had pulled him along over muddy terrain for what had to have been at least two hours earlier. Thankfully, they were no longer bound, but that was only because Bellamy’s bare hands would be of no use to him now if he wanted to escape. 

After the long, rainy, freezing walk from the ruined village back to the German camp, they’d been thrown unceremoniously into this small, low-ceilinged hut, with its straw-covered floor and single tiny window near the top of the wall. 

Coming in, Bellamy had noted that the door was bolted from the outside. 

As they’d entered the POW camp, Bellamy also couldn’t help but notice that the hut they were being thrown into was on the very outskirts of the camp, near the barbed-wire fences. 

Less of the camp to run through if they ever found a way out. 

The sun was fading fast now, the late-evening light slanting faintly against the wall. Clarke sat beneath the dim rays, her legs splayed out over one of the two thin, poorly-stuffed mattresses that lay against the back of the hut. 

Bellamy’s watch told him that they’d been in the camp for six hours now. No one had said anything to them. They’d been given no food. About two hours ago, a soldier had wordlessly yanked them to their feet and led them to the latrines a few huts down, giving them a few brief moments to relieve themselves. 

The two of them had said little even to each other, even though they’d been in the hut for nearly half the day. It seemed that they both were shell-shocked, unable to process anything that had happened. And, perhaps, a bit unwilling to try and think of the consequences. 

He hadn’t been able to help watching Clarke, glancing furtively over at her every once in a while only to see her gazing off blankly toward the opposite wall, her shoulders slumped in defeat. 

She was here because he’d dropped his guard. Because he’d let the way he feels about her take precedent over her safety. 

He was drowning in self-loathing because of it.

Her head was tipped back against the wall, and she startled him slightly as she twisted her neck, rolling her face toward his direction. 

“Why do you think they put us in this hut, and not one of the bigger ones with other Allied POWs?” She asked, her voice flat, only the words indicating that she was asking a question, and not the intonation. 

“I couldn’t begin to guess,” Bellamy replied, his voice thin and gravelly from disuse. 

He wondered how long it would take the unit to realize they were missing. 

“I heard one of the soldiers say ‘ _krankenschwester_ ’ to the others,” She continued, her voice quiet. “I know that means ‘nurse’ in German.”

Bellamy raised his eyebrows. “You know German?”

Clarke shook her head. “No. They just taught us the word for ‘nurse’ in many different languages in our training program, in case we were in a situation. . .well, a situation like this. To try and explain that we should be spared.”

“It doesn’t look like that plan is working,” Bellamy said bitterly.

He’d pleaded with them to leave her. They _ought_ to have left her. She wasn’t there to fight or harm anyone. Nurses treated anyone that needed aid when they were called to do so, no matter where they were from. 

He could bear himself being captured. But not Clarke. Not _her._

He dreaded the thought of what might happen – things that he wouldn’t be able to stop before they shot him, or both of them. 

He’d rather die before watching anyone hurt her in any way. He’d die trying to stop it.

So far, no one had come to do anything to them, demand anything of them. But no one had fed them, tried to speak to them either.

They were trapped, and entirely on their own. 

As if they could hear his inner thoughts, and wanted to prove him wrong simply out of spite, a soldier came barging through the door, a rifle slung over his back. He squinted at them in a cold, assessing manner, and in his hands were two tin bowls.

“Dinner and water,” he said in accented English, brandishing each bowl in turn. “Camps are running short. You will share.” He set them down carelessly on the straw at Bellamy’s feet, and Bellamy winced as he saw some of the water slosh over the side and onto the ground. 

The soldier cleared his throat. “I am here to tell you that the nurse’s services will be needed. That is why you are here. We are short of food. We are short of nurses too. Whenever we have need of her, we will bring soldiers and supplies in here. She must tend to their wounds, as we ask. At all other times, the two of you will stay here.” He glanced pointedly at Bellamy. “This is an officer’s camp, and I see you are an officer. There is no labor here. You will not work. Simply stay here.”

Without so much as a nod, the soldier turned on his heel and left. Bellamy could hear the heavy bolt being fastened on the other side of the door. 

Bellamy’s eyes snapped to Clarke. She was already gazing at him, her expression stricken.

“Bellamy,” she gasped. “I’m so sorry.”

He frowned. “What?” Shaking his head, he carefully gathered up the two bowls and rose to go sit beside her. 

“They – they captured us because of me. You’re stuck here. Because of me.” Her breath shuddered in her chest. 

The distress in her voice gave him chest pangs. She had it all wrong.

“Clarke, no. I’m here because of _them._ This isn’t your fault. They could have left me, and clearly they didn’t want to.” He reached a hand out to her knee, clasping it gently. “Besides, I shouldn’t have let my guard down out there.”

He avoided her eyes. What the _hell_ had he been doing in that bell tower? Certainly nothing he _should_ have been doing. But he’d been so tired of the noise, the crowds of bodies, the fatalities of battle, and in that bell tower, the silence, the aloneness there with her, a girl who was very much alive, a girl that he desperately loved – it had been intoxicating, overwhelming. 

Quite honestly, he had no idea what he would or wouldn’t have done if they hadn’t been interrupted in the worst way imaginable. 

He’d felt the racing pulse in her neck under his lips. The way she’d leaned into his hands instead of away from them. 

Bellamy never would have imagined that a love like this could have such abysmal, heartbreaking timing, but it proved to, over and over again. 

Bellamy had been afraid to imagine a future – one with his sister, one back in Canada. . .one with Clarke. He didn’t want to jinx his chances.

Now, those chances felt as if they grew slimmer and slimmer by the hour.

“Really, Clarke. Don’t fret over it, all right? I wouldn’t have let them take you alone anyway.” He squeezed her knee one last time before he reached for the bowls he’d brought over, handing her the one with the weak-looking stew. 

As she took the bowl from him, her eyes met his, shining with things not spoken.

“We’ll get out,” she said, dragging her eyes back down to the stew. “They send rescue parties all the time. They’ll find us. I have to believe that they will,” she sniffed, slurping a bit of stew and wincing as she swallowed it down. “I think that’s just boiled cabbage water,” she said in explanation, trading off with him so that he could have a few sips.

“I didn’t think it was possible to eat worse than we do in our trenches,” Bellamy shook his head, swallowing down the warm, bitter, unsalted broth unhappily. 

Clarke sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for some lobster and fresh butter on toast,” she said wistfully. “I used to eat it all the time. Now it’s been years since I’ve had it.”

Bellamy cocked an eyebrow. “Lobster? All right then, miss princess.”

Clarke elbowed him half-heartedly. “Lobster is all over the place in Nova Scotia, Bellamy. Everyone eats it. It’s not expensive if it’s common enough to be on every street corner.”

“What a heavenly place it must be,” he teased. 

A memory flashed behind his eyes. Colorful clapboard houses overlooking the water. Rocky, sloping cliffs. The sound of crashing waves and the feel of boots on sand. Clarke’s voice, telling him to take one of her father’s books from the shelves. 

A heavenly place, indeed.

Bellamy shook himself mentally. Dwelling on that now would only make it hurt more when he never got to see it again. 

He looked over at Clarke, who was now sipping from the bowl of water. The braid he’d so gently twisted down her back had come loose as the soldiers had jostled them for miles across the fields, and her hair now lay in straggly waves around her shoulders. The tip of her nose was pink with cold.

He knew that he’d do anything to protect this girl. He’d known for a long time now. 

They had to make it out of here. He wouldn’t allow himself to think of the alternative. Even if they couldn’t escape, it was the honorable thing to do at the end of a war to return the prisoners to the country from whence they came.

They had to make it back, one way or another. 

“Let’s ration the water,” he suggested, taking it from her hands and sipping briefly. “We don’t know when they’ll be back, or how often they’ll bring meals.”

“Good thinking,” she nodded, stifling a yawn that made her jaw tremble. 

They finished off the terrible broth and set the bowls aside. The sun had fully set, and the hut was darkening. They’d been left with no lantern, candles, or any kind of light source.

It was too bad. Bellamy definitely would have set the hut on fire to create a diversion long enough for them to run. 

Bellamy stood and walked to the window, trying to measure with his eyes, to gauge if either of them could potentially break the glass and climb through it. 

It definitely looked too small for anyone larger than a child to escape through. 

When he turned back to Clarke, she’d already laid down on her mattress, her back curled against the wall, her hair only faintly shining in the dim moonlight. 

He looked briefly at the second mattress against the other wall.

To sleep there, apart from her now, would feel painfully unnatural, cold at this point. 

He trudged tiredly to her side, kneeling and carefully rolling onto the thin, lumpy mattress beside her.

She reached for him immediately, tucking her face into his chest, the crown of her head resting under his chin.

He turned his head, pressing his cheek against her hair, and wrapped his arms around her, practically folding his body over hers.

Nothing was going to come between him and Clarke Griffin. 

… 

Clarke grit her teeth as she sterilized the wide, weeping wound that had been shot into the side of the German captain. 

The bullet had made no exit wound. It was still inside him, deeply embedded into his bleeding, pale flesh. 

She clenched her hands, trying to force blood through them to warm them up. The hut they were being kept in had no source of heat, and she’d been freezing for the past week. 

“Bellamy? I’ll need a second set of hands for this one,” she called. 

Bellamy hoisted himself off the wall behind her, where his arms had been folded across his chest as he’d watched her intently. For the past week, he’d had nothing to do but sit around, waiting silently as Clarke was brought soldier after soldier to fix up under the steely, close watch of a German commanding officer who loomed over her every second that she worked. More than once, she’d asked for Bellamy’s helping hands as she stitched wounds and set broken bones. 

Most of the time, she really did need the help. But sometimes, she just wanted Bellamy near her, and to give him something to do. She knew the idleness he’d been forced into frustrated him. He itched to get back to his men, to get them both back to the relative safety that lay behind their own front lines. 

Bellamy crouched next to her. “Just tell me what you need.”

She let her shoulder lean against his for the briefest of seconds, craving the comfort of his solid body next to hers. “Can you hold the skin taut around the wound? I need to extract the bullet. It’s still embedded.”

Clarke saw him nod out of the corner of her eye, and she reached for the tweezers. She could feel the gaze of scrutiny cast over her by the German monitor just past her other shoulder, and she tried not to shudder. 

At Bellamy’s touch, the soldier lying on the table that had been brought into the hut groaned, his fists clenching against the slats of wood. 

“All right, Bruno, this will hurt, but I promise you will feel much better in the coming days once it’s gone, you hear me?” Clarke tried to reassure the soldier. So far, he was one of the only ones she’d treated that seemed to respond to her when she spoke, and he nodded quickly, screwing his eyes shut. 

With a grimace, Clarke carefully reached into the wound with the tweezer blades. Bruno jolted, crying out. 

“Try to keep him still,” Clarke muttered to Bellamy. The tweezers hit on another piece of metal. She maneuvered the blades to clasp onto it, slowly extracting it from the gaping wound and dropping it onto the table next to her.

“It’s out, Bruno. It doesn’t look like it nicked anything important. You’ll be all right.” Clarke nudged Bellamy’s hands out of the way with her own, cleaning the wound one more time before carefully stitching it up. 

The German soldier lying prone in front of her panted, his fists still clenching with each loop of the needle and thread. 

“Can you sit up? I need to wrap a bandage around your middle to keep this protected,” Clarke asked, lightly tapping the soldier’s arm. 

His jaw clenched, and his face went white around his lips and mustache as he sat up with great effort. 

“Thank you very much,” he said in stilted English, surprising her. “I am indebted to you, fräulein.” He patted her shoulder in a friendly way. 

A disapproving cough came from somewhere over Clarke’s right shoulder. 

The supervising officer didn’t seem to approve of any kind of fraternization between nurse and patient. 

“Bruno, go back to your barracks and rest,” the supervisor said stiffly, nodding toward the door. 

As Clarke tied off the bandage around his midsection, he gave her a tired, appreciative nod, gingerly shrugging back into his ruined gray tunic. 

“Goodbye, fräulein,” he said faintly as he disappeared out the door, the supervisor casting a stern look back at Clarke before closely following him. 

Clarke sighed, slumping her elbows against the edge of the table, exhausted from the concentration she’d had to put into tending to the bullet wound. 

“He seemed kinder than the others,” Bellamy remarked as he leaned against the table next to her, a dripping wet rag in his hands. After the first few patients, the officer had started having a bucket of water and clean rags brought to the hut each day for sanitary purposes. He didn’t want his newfound medical personnel to accidentally cross-contaminate something and infect an officer under his watch, apparently.

Clarke nodded, too tired to resist the way Bellamy reached for her hands one at a time, carefully washing the blood from her palms and from each finger. The water was freezing cold, which just set the chill deeper into her bones, but nothing could be done about that, it seemed. 

She glanced up at their small window. The sky was fading from a pale gray to a deeper, mauve-y shade.

It would be night soon. How had the afternoon passed so quickly?

She wondered if they would be getting dinner tonight. They hadn’t the night before, or two nights before that.

She wondered if the camp was running low on rations, or if they just didn’t care enough about the two of them to feed them properly. 

Bellamy gently returned her hands to her lap and tossed the rag over the back of one of the rickety wooden chairs they now had.

Clarke would have gladly traded both of the chairs for a stove. The inside of the hut was permeated with a damp, numbing cold.

Clarke hadn’t been this cold since. . .since Vimy Ridge.

Memories of running through snow for hours and hours, unable to stop soldiers from bleeding out, turning the white ground crimson, pushed in on her consciousness. 

Of Monty, laying in her arms, the life passing from his eyes as the biting sleet and wind pelted them on the ridge. 

The edges of her vision grew dark as she lost focus on the room around her. 

Someone was saying her name, the voice thin, tinny, as if it was reaching her from the other end of a long tunnel.

“Clarke.”

She blinked rapidly, trying to gain her bearings. 

Bellamy was standing in front of her, his own shoulders hunched with cold. 

“You all right?” He asked her, his dark brows low over his eyes with concern. 

She had no answers for him. Instead, she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his waist and tucking her body against his. 

She felt his hand fall to her hair, stroking it lightly, soothing her. 

He didn’t ask any more questions. 

He understood. 

Clarke squeezed him tighter, wondering if it was selfish to be happy that he was here with her.

… 

Bellamy had known something was wrong when she’d woken up that morning. 

He’d been stirring for a few minutes already, gazing down at her smooth, sleeping face just below his, when her eyes slowly blinked open, clouded with confusion. 

It was almost like she didn’t know where she was. 

They’d been in the camp for twelve days now – Bellamy had been marking them on the wall with a large splinter, just for the sake of his sanity. 

They’d been here long enough for Clarke to be used to her whereabouts. 

She finally caught his gaze. “Bell’my?” She croaked, squinting up at him. 

“Mhm,” he murmured, reaching up to brush her hair back from her face. As his palm grazed her forehead, he couldn’t help but notice the warmth radiating from her skin. 

She felt feverish. 

“It’s so cold, Bellamy,” she whispered, burrowing even closer to him beneath the blankets. 

And it _was_ cold. And Clarke had been tired lately, likely from the stress of performing medicine in close quarters under duress. 

Maybe she’d just caught a cold. Everyone caught a cold sometimes. 

But as the day wore on, Bellamy couldn’t help but notice that she _didn’t_ have a sniffle. That she was moving much, much more slowly than usual. So much so that the supervising soldier had noticed it, and barked at her more than once to quit working like a dullard. 

When the supervisor and the sutured soldier finally left the hut, tears began to leak from the corners of Clarke’s eyes as she sat down, lowering her head to her arms on the table. 

Bellamy hurried to her side. “Clarke, what’s wrong?”

Slowly, she lifted her head, dragging her eyes up to his as tears dripped down her flushed cheeks. 

“My head aches so much, Bellamy,” she said in a watery voice. “It feels like it’s going to split open. And I’m so cold, and my body – my body hurts if I move too quickly. I can hardly think.”

Bellamy’s heart skipped a beat. A fearful beat.

He’d had typhus when he was seven years old. He’d been bedridden for weeks, but he’d survived it. He wouldn’t be able to catch it again.

It had started exactly like this. Fever, chills, headache, fatigue. Flushing. Just as Clarke’s violently pink cheeks and neck were doing now. 

No. No, no, no, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. 

Typhus could _kill._

He tried to even out his shallow breathing as the realization washed over him. 

He couldn’t lie to her. Deep down, she probably already knew.

“Clarke, I think you’re getting sick. Why don’t you lie down, all right?” He held a hand out to her, and she weakly complied as he pulled her up from the chair. 

Bellamy tried to tamp down on the panic rising in his chest. She needed a doctor, a real hospital in which to be looked after. Not a cold, damp hut and a poor, sporadic supply of food and water.

But Bellamy was almost sure that if the soldiers found out she was sick, they would quarantine her somewhere away from him. . .or perhaps something even worse. 

The situation was unfathomable. There was no good answer to be had. 

Bellamy’s heart squeezed as he noticed the tears still running down her flushed face as she crawled under the blankets, her breath coming in short gasps. 

“I’m s-so cold, Bellamy,” she chattered, shrinking in on herself, her eyes glazing over as he sank down next to her. 

He put the back of his hand to her forehead. 

It was burning up. 

They needed to draw the fever down from her head.

“I’ll keep you warm,” he reassured her, lifting the blankets to fold her into his arms beneath them. Her hands were like ice against his when she drew hers up, snaking her fingers between his own. She tucked her face into his neck, and he held her tighter.

_This couldn’t be happening._

Bellamy blinked back his own tears, happy she couldn’t see his face.

… 

“I think I hear someone coming.”

Bellamy’s low voice tickled her ear, and Clarke slowly pried her eyes open, lifting her head from his shoulder. She’d been sitting in his lap for the last hour or two, wrapped in a blanket, sleeping in his arms. She needed his body heat to stay warm, and he’d held her, his cheek soft against the top of her head as he dozed as well. 

Clarke tried to stretch her aching muscles. Every little move hurt her, exhausted her. She felt as if she’d been trampled by a team of horses. 

She knew now that she had typhus. After a day or two of persisting symptoms, she tried to convince herself that she might just be run down. Maybe she had a bad cold.

But then one night, as she tiredly scrubbed at her body during their weekly allotted bathing time, she noticed the rash on her chest, spreading down to her ribs.

Horror-stricken, she’d avoided Bellamy back in the hut, trying not to let him near her. 

“Bellamy, I’m sick. I’ve got a rash. Don’t touch me,” she warned, stepping backward out of his reach when he’d confronted her.

“Clarke,” he pleaded, still moving toward her. “I had typhus when I was seven. I can’t catch it again.”

Wordlessly, he’d fumbled with the top buttons of her now-ragged dress, undoing the first three or four with the gentlest of touches. 

The tips of his fingers passed lightly over the red flush across her sternum, seeing how it sprawled down over skin that was hidden from his view by her underthings. 

“But that _is_ what you have, Clarke,” he said, the faintest of tremors in his voice. His face unreadable, he turned abruptly away from her, pacing across the small room. 

“We’ve got to get you out of here,” he muttered, running a hand over his face in frustration.

Clarke’s muscles ached so badly even from the simple exertions of the day that she nearly collapsed onto one of the mattresses, laying like a ragdoll on one side, not even bothering to re-button the collar of her dress.

“How,” she croaked, trying to move as little as possible.

The fact of the matter was, Clarke just didn’t see a way. The place was surrounded. Not only by fences, but by guards. By soldiers who weren’t even guards, but would still notice two people in Canadian uniforms sneaking out. And even if they could get out, the Allied trenches were miles away – if that’s even where their unit still was. 

Clarke didn’t think that her body could make it all those miles. She doubted she could even make it one, given how badly she felt at this point. 

Bellamy hadn’t had a solution either. He’d just held her silently while she tried to sleep, his fingers carding softly through her hair, over and over. It never failed to lull her into dreamland.

Clarke strained her ears, listening for whatever it was that Bellamy had heard. Sure enough, several pairs of footsteps were growing nearer and nearer to their front door. 

She needed to get up. To move into a standing position. She couldn’t nurse anyone from Bellamy’s lap, no matter how excruciating it felt to try and hold herself upright on her own. 

She was too slow. Her arms shook as she tried to lift herself away from him. His hands tightened around her waist as the door was flung open. 

An officer that seemed to be leading a group of other soldiers into the hut paused, sneering as he assessed the situation in front of him.

 _“Whore,_ ” he muttered, his eyes lingering on the way Clarke’s body was draped across Bellamy’s. 

Clarke was suffering too much to find it in herself to be offended. Beneath her, she felt Bellamy rise to his feet, his arms around her as he lifted her along with him.

As she gathered her bearings, trying to keep her knees from trembling from the effort of standing, in the fog clouding her brain, she found that she was deeply grateful that Bellamy kept his hands on her waist to steady her, despite what the officer said. 

His eyes still narrowed in distaste, the German officer spoke again. “A commanding general has been badly wounded. You must fix him.”

Clarke nodded listlessly and began toward the makeshift surgery table they’d built in the hut. She surprised herself that she made it all the way to the table without falling. 

“You must understand,” the officer said sharply as the soldiers behind him began bringing in the general on a stretcher. “You must understand the importance. If you do not save this general’s life, _his_ will be forfeit.” 

With the last few words, the officer nodded back toward Bellamy. 

Panic swept over Clarke in a wave so strong that for a moment, she feared she’d black out. 

“You can’t do that,” she ground out, leaning on the table to support herself. “Does that not break some kind of POW treaty? You _can’t,_ ” she repeated, pounding the table anxiously with her fist. 

She looked back at Bellamy. He’d gone pale, the freckles on his face in sharper relief than usual. He did not move. 

“This general is vital to us,” the officer continued, unwavering. “You must do as I say, or your man will die. There is no time to lose,” he snapped, pointing at the unconscious general now lying on the table. 

Clarke’s heart beat sickeningly, the erratic pulse pounding in her ears. 

There was a holstered pistol at the officer’s hip. She didn’t see a way out of this. 

No matter how sick she felt, she had to find a way through this. For Bellamy’s sake.

She couldn’t live with herself if Bellamy’s death was on her hands.

And she couldn’t lose him.

She couldn’t. 

She shuffled up to the wounded general’s side to assess the damage.

Her heart dropped to her toes at what she saw.

The general’s abdomen was torn open, glutted with a dark sea of his own blood. Things that were supposed to strictly remain on the inside of the body were. . .no longer where they should be.

His liver, stomach, and guts were lacerated almost beyond recognition.

This wasn’t fixable. 

She was being set up to fail.

“Sir,” she choked out, averting her gaze from the gory scene in front of her. “Sir, he is beyond saving. I beg you-”

The officer pulled his gun from his holster, training it on Bellamy. Clarke bit back a whine of panic, and Bellamy’s eyes met hers, dark, unreadable.

 _“Fix him._ You must. You know what will happen if you do not.” The officer waved his pistol to emphasize his point. 

Clarke bit down hard on her lip to keep from screaming and tasted hot blood on her tongue.

This was impossible. It could not be done.

But for Bellamy, she was going to try. 

Clarke reached into the medic bag for iodine and a suture kit. It was beyond the realm of her capability to stitch him back up to a point of survival, but she had to make this effort. There was no other alternative.

The wounded general’s chest moved with the faintest of breaths as she sterilized the gaping wound stretching across his abdomen. He was still alive.

So far. 

Clarke worked as quickly as she could to sew shut the perforated organs, focusing every last dreg of energy in her sick, exhausted body on the task at hand. The man’s blood soaked through her skirt as she constantly wiped her hands, praying that they wouldn’t begin to shake from fatigue.

She could sense Bellamy still frozen behind her, taking care not to move a muscle as the officer continued to point his gun at him. 

She could feel Bellamy’s eyes on her. She could feel the much less welcome gaze of the German officer on her, as well. 

The stitching was done. The liver was on its own – Clarke could only hope that it wasn’t too damaged to heal. Now she just needed to clean up the surrounding area to prevent the general from going septic, and–

Something was wrong. 

Clarke dragged her eyes back up to the general’s chest.

It was no longer moving.

A wave of nausea hit her stomach.

She tried to discreetly reach for his wrist, feeling for a pulse.

Nothing.

 _Oh god,_ she thought blindly, her entire body whining in panic. _Oh, god, no._

“What is it?” The officer behind her demanded, a chilly edge to his already-sharp voice.

Clarke had no voice left within her to answer.

A moment of silence passed. It was as if all of the air had been sucked from the room.

 _“He is dead?”_ The officer’s voice questioned, his tone lethal.

Clarke couldn’t speak. She couldn’t move.

“You knew the rules, fraülein,” the officer continued, fury in his voice. “The general is dead. Now _he_ must die.”

Clarke whirled around to see him walking toward a defenseless Bellamy, who stood motionless, hands up, frozen in shock. 

_She wasn’t going to let this happen._

She was already sick. She probably would not survive this camp. 

But Bellamy could. He was healthy. A little underfed, and often too cold at night, but he could pull through this, easily. He was a captain, with a unit that needed him. 

Summoning the last ounce of energy in her body, she dashed across the room, throwing herself at the feet of the officer.

“The general is dead because of me. Shoot me instead.”

“Clarke, no!” Bellamy shouted, running toward her, tugging at her shoulders. “Get up, Clarke, stop! _No!”_

“It’s my fault. Punish me. I’ll do _anything,_ just please don’t hurt him,” Clarke begged, sprawled on the ground below the officer, her hands lifted in supplication.

This was her chance to do something good, here at the end.

She had to save the man she loved. 

The officer stared down at her with cold, hard eyes. 

Was he. . .considering?

Was this actually going to work?

A flash of fear bolted though Clarke’s heart. This was what she wanted, but she was still afraid. Her mother always taught her that heaven awaited them on the other side, but what if that wasn’t true? What if there was nothing? Or, perhaps, something worse?

“Consider this our thanks for the other soldiers you have helped,” the officer finally said, cocking the trigger of his gun.

He lowered his arm and fired a bullet into Clarke’s leg instead.

Pain shot up through her calf so fiercely that her vision spotted. A roaring sound deafened her. Somewhere in the haze of agony, she recognized it as Bellamy’s voice, bellowing somewhere above her. 

The room around her wavered and swam, and she collapsed onto her side, her elbows giving out beneath her.

After a moment, she felt something else around her leg alongside the searing, gut-wrenching pain. Bellamy’s hands, pushing up her skirts, clamping onto her knee.

Her vision was still so clouded. Were those the German soldiers over there, escorting their dead general out on his stretcher? 

The sound of the door slamming pulled her ever so slightly back to her senses. 

An excruciating throb pulsed in her leg, and she bit her lip again, blood surging in her mouth as she tried to keep from crying out. 

She realized Bellamy was saying her name, over and over. 

“Clarke, they took the medical supplies. Tell me what to do. Please,” he implored, and she squinted hard, forcing his face to swim back into focus.

He was leaning over her, his eyes frantic. She looked down to see his hand clamped over her leg, trying to stop the bleeding. Blood seeped over the cracks between his fingers.

That was her blood. Quite a lot of it. 

Clarke felt the edges of unconsciousness scratching at her brain. If she closed her eyes now, it would be so easy to just drift, to disappear into the dreamless black. 

_“Clarke,_ ” Bellamy said again, his voice rough with panic. 

He sounded so afraid. 

She couldn’t leave him here alone.

“Rip cloth from my apron,” she groaned. “If they took the disinfectants, just bind it as tightly as you can. Is there an exit wound?”

After a moment, he nodded.

“Then bind it,” she repeated. Bellamy did as he was told, tearing a swath easily from her apron.

Clarke wished it was cleaner. Her leg was almost guaranteed to get infected at this point. 

She wished for morphine, too. Anything to dull the excruciating pain.

She wouldn’t be able to walk a foot now, much less the miles back to camp.

Unless there was a rescue mission coming very soon, she expected her days were numbered. 

A number growing very, very small. 

She felt Bellamy wrap the wound, gasping sharply as he tightened it as much as he could.

“I’m sorry,” he said helplessly. “I’m sorry.”

Her vision began to spot again. She’d barely been able to move before this. Now, she felt so beaten that she wasn’t sure she’d ever move again.

But Bellamy was alive. He was unharmed. 

And he was still with her. 

“Bellamy,” she whispered. “Help me.”

She didn’t even need to clarify what she meant. He slipped his arms around her, carrying her gingerly, clutching her body to his chest as he crossed the room.

He gently laid her on the bed, wincing as Clarke herself gasped at the jostling of her leg.

With painful effort, she lifted her head slightly. 

The blood was already starting to soak through the bandage on her leg. 

Bellamy sank down next to her, sitting up by her head, his arms folding over his bent knees restlessly. “Why did you do that?” His voice was strangled. When his eyes met hers, they were filled with unshed tears, his dark brows quivering low above them. 

Clarke sighed, trying not to think about how even taking a breath hurt her leg. “You have a better chance of making it out of here than me, Bellamy,” she breathed.

He shook his head vehemently. “My life isn’t worth more than yours, Clarke. I’m going to find a way to get you out,” he said forcefully. “To get us out. I will.”

Clarke felt a tear she hadn’t even realized was welling drip down over the bridge of her nose. 

“It’s all right, Bellamy.”

The aching muscles in her arms protested as she slowly reached up to grab his hand and draw it down to her lips. She pressed a feeble kiss to his knuckles, savoring the warmth of his skin against her mouth. Delirium began to give way to the pushes of unconsciousness again, the pain dulling as her eyelids drooped.

“It’s all right.”

… 

Bellamy tried not to let the cold wall at his back make him shiver. If he did, he would disturb Clarke. 

Right now, she was sprawled listlessly across the mattress, her eyes closed as her head rested in his lap. She had shoved her hands between his thigh and the bed, seeking warmth before she’d drifted back to sleep in her delirious state. 

It had been two days since they’d shot her. No one had come to the hut since then other than to bring them meals and escort them to the latrines. Bellamy had had to carry her back and forth each time, and he was sure that she would have been embarrassed if she hadn’t been nearly out of her mind. 

No one had come to make Clarke treat any wounded patients since the general had died on the table.

Bellamy knew it was a bad sign. It meant they were leaving her in here to die. 

He’d nearly driven himself mad trying to think of a way to escape. He had no weapons, no tools on him at all. The entire camp was heavily guarded, and Bellamy had no idea where most of the entrances and exits even were. No one was coming in and out of the hut, so he didn’t even have a chance to apprehend them and steal their weapons, or try to bribe them. 

He would have fought tooth and nail with his own body if he knew it would have worked. But Clarke was far past the point of being able to stand, much less walk or run. The typhus was bad enough – it made her feverish, achy, and exhausted. But now there was the gunshot wound to her leg to compound the issue – an issue that seemed to be growing even worse. Bellamy had ripped yet another swath of apron to freshly bind her leg this morning, and he noticed that the skin around the wound was swollen, shiny, and fevered; it was slowly turning a frightening shade of purple. It was definitely infected, and there was nothing he could do about that, either. 

He’d never felt so helpless in his life. Every moment, he felt seconds away from screaming. 

Her lucid moments were now coming few and far in between. She mostly slept, shivering in his arms as the fever tricked her into feeling even colder than she was. When she was awake, she mostly stared listlessly at the wall, and had little to say. When Bellamy knew she was awake, he sometimes took to filling the silence by telling her stories about himself as a child, about Octavia, even telling bedtime stories that his mother used to tell them at night while they were still small. 

He knew she was listening by the way she’d faintly squeeze his knee, or nod her head against his shoulder. 

He felt her stirring faintly in his lap. His stiff neck cracked as he lifted it off the wall to look down at her. She’d turned her head to gaze up at him, her eyes glassy, fevered. 

“Bellamy.” Her lips formed his name, but no sound came out. The color in her cheeks was high, and he pressed the back of a finger to her temple. Still hot. 

“Hm? What’s wrong?” He asked quietly, his eyes roaming her flushed face. Hair was sticking to her clammy forehead, and he brushed it back.

“I’m scared,” she said so quietly he almost didn’t catch it. Through the feverish haze, he could see it in her eyes – the fear, the confusion, the worry. She was too exhausted to hide it. 

“Clarke,” he said, her name a caress on his lips. He traced his fingertips over her hairline and down over her warm cheek. His chest constricted, and in that moment it seemed like the magnitude of what he felt might swallow him whole. 

“Clarke, listen to me.”

_I love you._

Making sure that she knew that now felt more important than ever. 

So why did the words stick so badly in his throat? They felt almost too sacred to speak.

He swallowed thickly.

“I’m not going to let you die, all right? I’ll get us out. I _promise_ you.”

Her eyes were full, and they unwaveringly met his own. She exhaled a ragged breath. 

With some effort, she lifted her arm, bringing her hand to rest against his cheek. Her thumb brushed back and forth over the contour of his cheekbone. 

Instinctually, Bellamy leaned into it, closing his eyes. 

He felt the muscles in her arm begin to tremble with exertion. She was so weak now. 

He reached up to wrap his hand around hers, gently drawing it back down to rest over her side. 

_Side._

A memory tugged at Bellamy’s thoughts.

Of Clarke, patching up a bullet wound in the side of one of the only soldiers that had treated her with gratitude. 

_Bruno._ What was it that he had said?

_“I am indebted to you, fräulein.”_

An idea sparked in Bellamy’s mind. A harebrained, barely-a-plan kind of plan. It was almost certain to fail. 

But it was something. And he had to try. 

He couldn’t just sit here and hold her in his arms and watch her waste away, slip silently into death’s grasp. 

He wouldn’t. 

“I’ll be right back,” he murmured to Clarke, gently lifting her from his lap as he shimmied sideways.

Her eyes, sweet despite their burning, finally broke from his gaze as she slowly shifted over, curling up on the mattress as if in slow motion.

He leaned down to kiss her shoulder before he got to his feet and headed for the door.

When he glanced back at her one more time, she’d already fallen asleep. 

Bellamy knocked hard on the door, knowing there would be a guard outside close enough to hear him. 

Seconds later, he heard the sound of a sliding bolt, and the door swung open. “You are not to leave your hut, prisoner,” the guard barked, his hand clenching the barrel of the rifle slung over his shoulder. 

“I have an urgent message on behalf of the nurse,” Bellamy said hurriedly, stepping forward to shield Clarke from the guard’s view. He certainly couldn’t do anything to help her if he got himself shot, too. 

“What do you mean?” The guard grumbled, his brows drawing low over his sharp eyes. 

“It’s about the officer she treated last week – Bruno. She’s worried about his wound and wants to survey its healing. She’s afraid of infection, especially for a ranking officer.”

The guard eyed Bellamy skeptically. 

“It could be a matter of life and death, sir,” Bellamy emphasized, lying through his teeth. 

And then, by some miracle, the guard decided to acquiesce. The health of their own officers seemed to be of actual concern to them, Bellamy supposed. 

“I will send word and have him sent to your hut for the nurse’s inspection,” he finally said in a clipped voice. “Now, turn around and get back inside immediately. Do not disrupt me again.”

Bellamy nodded, glancing back at Clarke as the door slammed in his face. She didn’t even stir.

Maybe Bruno would have enough of a conscience to help them escape.

Bellamy had surveyed the area as quickly as he could the last time he’d walked to the latrines. The area their hut was in was near the fence, but it was impossible for even an able-bodied prisoner to climb. 

He hardly even knew which direction they should go in if they managed to get past the guards by some miracle and get out.

Even so, Bellamy prayed that Bruno would be fast, and would mean what he said. 

He was their last hope.

They had to get out. Tonight. 

… 

Clarke’s eyes drifted open as Bellamy turned away from the front door. She couldn’t help but mindlessly linger on his form: his strong hands, his freckled skin, his cheeks, which were now much more hollow and gaunt than they had been when she’d first met him.

The war had been kind to no one, but he was still so beautiful. 

It made her weak, sluggish heart trip in her chest. It beat for _him._

That was the thing about sickness, about near-certain death. It made one freely, openly admit what had been repressed, denied for so long. 

She’d been afraid to acknowledge just how much she cared for Bellamy, how much love she felt for him. It was war. It felt wrong to get attached to people. Especially those constantly in harm’s way – people that you could lose at any moment. To reassignment, to prison camps – to death.

And yet, here they were together, in a prison camp, and she was dying. 

She realized now that love was the most important thing. It shouldn’t have been feared, shouldn’t have been hidden.

And now it was too late. 

Clarke was suddenly glad that she was too exhausted to cry. 

Her eyes tracked him lethargically as he slowly made his way back over to her and sank down next to her, sighing as his hand rested atop her waist. 

“What did you do, Bellamy?” She rasped, dragging a hand to clasp his leg, just above his knee.

He glanced down at her, his expression guarded. “Got help. I hope.”

Who could possibly help them here, now? Clarke stared up at him in confusion. “What?”

“You’ll see, if it worked,” he said quietly, brushing his hand lightly back and forth over the curve of her side. 

He didn’t explain any further, only traced soothing patterns over her waist as he kept his eyes trained intently on the door. 

Clarke couldn’t say how much time had passed when a knock on the door startled her. Bellamy’s hand stilled against her side. 

“Fraülein?” It was Bruno’s voice, the kind patient from before. “Fraülein, I am told you needed to see me? My wound is healing well.” The officer sidled in, a lantern swinging at his side. 

His brow lowered in concern when he finally laid eyes on her. Next to her, Bellamy rose to his feet. 

“She does not look well,” Bruno said in a low voice, clasping his hands anxiously. 

“She’s dying,” Bellamy said harshly, his hands on his hips. Clarke flinched. She knew it was true, but hearing him say it out loud, and to someone else – it made it terrifyingly real.

Bruno swallowed thickly. “I – I am sorry. She has helped so many of us-”

“When she treated you, you said you were indebted to her,” Bellamy interrupted, his voice stern, unwavering. “Now we are calling in that debt.”

Clarke’s drooping eyes widened. _What was he doing?_

“I – what could I possibly do?” Bruno said in a thin voice, his eyes darting nervously to the bloodied rag that was wrapped around Clarke’s shin. “I am no doctor, and I have no authority to release you. I am so very sorry that she is ill, but I do not see what can be done.”

Bellamy stepped even closer to the man, his back straight, his shoulders squared, looming over him. It was intimidating even to Clarke, from her position sprawled on the mattress behind him. 

“You can help us escape. You know how.”

Bruno spluttered. “But I-”

“You _owe her your life,_ ” Bellamy nearly growled. “And so do I. You _know_ you owe her your life. The _least_ you can do is give hers a chance. She’s a nurse. She never deserved to be here in the first place and you know it.”

“I’m sorry, but-”

“I will _not_ stand by and watch her die, do you hear me?” Bellamy grabbed at the man’s coat sleeves, shaking him. “I _will not._ ” 

The hair on the back of Clarke’s neck stood up. She hadn’t heard that voice come out of him since they’d been back on the front lines. It was the voice he used when he was giving orders to the unit – trying to save their lives on the battlefield. 

Bruno fell silent, his gaze still solemnly passing between Bellamy and Clarke. Was he. . .was he going to say yes?

Clarke felt no hope in her heart for herself. Even if she made it back to a field hospital, the likelihood that she would survive was. . .slim, to say the least. She knew that now.

But _Bellamy._

If he could get her back, that would mean he’d make it back, too. He could be safe. At least, as safe as an army captain could be in the middle of a war.

What if Bruno decided that it was the right thing to do? A life for a life. 

Clarke bit her lip – a habit she even now couldn’t bring herself to stop, no matter how many times Bellamy told her not to as he brushed her bottom lip with the pad of his thumb.

The German soldier tilted his head at Bellamy. “You love her,” he said quietly. A statement, not a question. 

Bellamy stilled, his back to her. He said nothing. Clarke’s heart leapt into her throat. 

Bruno’s eyes settled on her. She could almost see the gears turning in his mind. 

“All right,” he finally said, his voice hushed. 

Bellamy stumbled backward, releasing the man’s coat sleeves. Clearly, he hadn’t expected this. He turned around to look at Clarke, meeting her eyes, a spark of hope flickering over his face. 

“It has to be tonight,” he turned back to Bruno, folding his arms over his chest. “She doesn’t have much time left. You need to get us out tonight.”

“Tonight,” Bruno repeated, his voice a bit distant. He swung the lantern in his hand mindlessly as he thought, clearly grasping for some kind of viable solution. 

Bellamy cleared his throat. “You should know that she – she can’t really walk. She was shot in the leg and it’s infected, in case you couldn’t tell.” 

“Can she ride?” Bruno asked suddenly, his eyes flickering to Bellamy’s, who in turn twisted around to look at Clarke. 

Clarke grimaced. “A horse? I. . .think so,” she murmured tentatively. 

Miles on a horse meant miles of her leg being jostled over rough terrain, miles of her having to hold on and stay upright. She actually _wasn’t_ sure that she could manage it. 

But this was their only option. 

“I won’t let you fall,” Bellamy reassured her in a low voice. 

He already knew what she was worrying about. 

Bruno nodded, his tongue finally beginning to catch up with his mind. “You’re actually very near an outer gate. I know when the guards switch. I will bring the horse around, say it is for myself for a mission. When the guards switch, I will take you two to the gate and slip you out. The window of time in which this works is very slim, you must know.” 

“Can you tell us where to go once we’re out?” Bellamy paced, wringing his cap in his hands. 

“Southwest. You must keep to the forest – go deep enough into it that the treeline is out of sight. No one patrols there. With the two of you on the horse’s back, it will take you an hour to reach your camp, unless your men have moved with any alacrity in the past 48 hours. Stay in the forest, stay riding southwest. The sky is clear tonight. Look to the stars.” Bruno nodded toward the window.

Clarke’s weary heart thumped hard in her chest. 

This was happening. 

They might make it out.

Bellamy might survive this. 

“Thank you,” she rasped up at Bruno, realizing the risk he was taking. If he was caught, he’d likely be imprisoned himself, if not worse. 

Clarke hoped that he would not be. No matter who they fought for, she couldn’t live with the thought of anyone dying to save her. Not now. Not when there was hardly anything left of her to save.

Bruno tread carefully over to her, crouching down. Gingerly, he reached for her hand, giving it the faintest of squeezes. 

“I wish you the best of luck, little fraülein,” he said quietly, his expression soft. 

Clarke tried to squeeze his hand back. “I’ll never forget this. I’ll pray for you,” she said, nodding her head in emphasis. 

Clarke felt bad knowing that it was almost certainly a lie. She wasn’t sure that there even was a god to pray to, after all that she’d seen since the start of the war.

“I’ll be back two hours after dark,” he said to both of them, rising and heading for the door. “Have her on her feet and ready. We all must be quick.”

“Thank you,” Bellamy finally murmured just as Bruno was walking back out through the door. The German soldier turned back, giving Bellamy a knowing look and a nod, before he disappeared into the courtyard outside. 

Clarke’s eyes lingered on Bellamy, thinking of the risk he’d taken in asking. Of how desperate he must be. Of the way he’d _demanded_ that they be helped to escape. 

She couldn’t help but think of how good it felt to know that someone cared about her that much. How it soothed her like a balm to her heart, here at the end of things. 

“I’m going to get you out, Clarke,” he said finally, his voice cracking. “We’re going to make it back. You’ll pull through this. I know it.”

She could hear the tremor in his voice. He wasn’t convinced of his own words, not by a long shot. 

Neither was she. 

...

Waiting until Bruno had instructed them to be ready was agonizing for Bellamy. For every moment that ticked by, time was lost that could make the difference between Clarke’s life and death. And the thought of her life being cut short because she took - _pleaded -_ for a bullet that had been meant for him. . .no. Bellamy wouldn't be able to stand the sight of himself. The thought of himself. He could barely do so now.

Currently, she was sprawled out across his lap, held loosely in his arms, asleep. He’d told her to, to try and build up what little energy she could. Her head lolled up against his shoulder, and from the depths of his memory, Bellamy was reminded briefly of a drawing he’d seen of Michelangelo’s _Pietà_ in a library book once. He wondered if there would ever come a time where he could go to Italy in peace, to see the statue itself and visit the Vatican. Lately, it felt as if the war would never end. The Allied gains seemed to have stagnated, last he’d heard, and the last battle they’d fought in was a disaster and waste of life. Somewhere along the way, Bellamy felt he’d lost sight of the point of it all. Especially now, trapped in a prison camp, watching the girl he loved dying in his arms. 

No. Not dying. He wouldn’t accept that. She would _not._

He’d tried to think of everything. He’d put her behind him on the horse, and he’d braided a rope out of the last of her uniform apron to keep her looped to him. He knew she didn’t have the strength to hold on to him for an hour, no matter what she’d tried to argue.

He had to pull this off. 

There was a scratch at the door. 

“Clarke.” Bellamy gently shook her, watching her face. Listening to her slightly labored breathing pick up as she stirred. “It’s time.”

“Right,” she mumbled, clinging to his coat as she tried to hoist herself upward. 

“I’m so sorry, but it’ll look more suspicious if anyone in the distance sees me carrying you. You’re going to have to walk, Clarke. Can you do it?”

Her eyes lingered on him as she bit back a grimace. He could see it. She only nodded in response.

“Come on,” he gestured, and lifted her gently to her feet. He wrapped his arm firmly around her waist, his own pulse racing. 

He didn’t want to see her hurt anymore, not a single hair on her head. But this had to be done. 

As she took a tentative step forward with her bad leg, she stumbled, a feeble cry catching in her throat as she clamped a hand over her mouth. He held her steady, resisting every nerve in his body that was telling him to lift her off her feet and into his arms.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“Not your fault,” she choked out, her hand gripping his so hard for support that he was beginning to lose feeling in his fingers. 

Bellamy held her tighter. “Try to keep your weight off that leg. Just limp. We’ll manage it.” 

When they opened the door, they were met by Bruno’s drawn, shadowed face.

“We must hurry. The night shift guards will be here at any moment. I tied the horse by the gate. It is waiting.” Bruno motioned them forward anxiously.

“Thank you,” Clarke whimpered, her face going ghostly pale from the pain of moving forward. 

Bruno said nothing, simply leading them toward the back gate, skirting through the deepest shadows and motioning for them to follow. 

In the waning moonlight, Bellamy could see a sheen of sweat now covering Clarke’s brow from her efforts. She began to shiver. 

The horse was large and sturdy-looking, if a bit scruffy. It would do.

Bellamy assessed the situation. “I’ll get on first. Will you lift her up behind me?”

Bruno nodded. 

Bellamy hoisted himself onto the mare, patting her neck in reassurance. “You’re our ticket out, old girl,” he whispered to her, reaching for the reins. 

“Watch her leg,” Bellamy warned as Bruno grasped Clarke’s waist, pushing her up onto the horse behind him. She swallowed down a groan as her infected leg knocked against the horse’s side. 

Bellamy’s jaw clenched. This entire ride was going to be agonizing for her, and there was nothing that he could do about it. 

But it was the only choice left, other than losing her all together. 

_Only choice._ He gritted his teeth at the oxymoron.

“Hold on to me, all right?” He murmured over his shoulder, quickly looping the makeshift rope around both of them and tying it around his waist, in case she didn’t have the strength in her arms to manage it for the entire ride. “I won’t let you fall.”

“I trust you,” he heard her whisper faintly as he felt her press against his back. Her arms trembled as she wrapped them around his middle, locking her hands just above his navel. He moved a hand to cover hers, squeezing them briefly before wrapping the reins back around his fists. 

“Ride southwest for an hour. Stay deep in the forest until then. Be careful when you reach your own camp, or they might shoot you by accident. Announce yourselves. And good luck – both of you,” Bruno said resolutely, giving them a sharp nod before moving in front of the horse to open the back gate. 

“Good luck,” he repeated, and slapped the rump of the horse. 

She began to gallop, and Bellamy swiftly guided her to the treeline, pushing her deep into the woods. It was dark, but the leaves had fallen off the trees for the winter, and the night sky was clear through the branches above them. 

“You all right?” Bellamy called back to her as he held the horse at a gallop, pushing her as much as he felt comfortable with.

The strangled sound of affirmation behind him was less than convincing. It had to be hurting her. 

And so they rode, following the stars, galloping swiftly through the night, weaving in between the trees. 

Bellamy found that time passed at an infuriatingly slow pace when he knew that Clarke was in pain. 

When they came to a stream, Bellamy stopped briefly to let the horse drink. She deserved it. Clarke’s grasp on his waist had grown looser. It was getting harder and harder for her to hold on.

As they took off again, he risked holding the reins with only only one hand, reaching down with the other to hold Clarke’s locked fingers to him, to keep her steady. 

Her grip grew steadily more feeble. His chest whined in panic, squirming with fear that she’d lose consciousness soon. He had to get them there. 

And then, finally. 

Finally, far, far in the distance, through the trees, he saw the lights of a field hospital tent. Exactly where he needed to be. 

He pushed the mare faster, almost to a sprint here so close to the finish line. 

As they neared the clearing, he could see armed soldiers stirring, moving toward the trees.

“Don’t shoot!” He called out, tugging back on the reins, slowing her down in caution. “It’s Allied personnel! Don’t shoot!” 

The men didn’t stand down, but they allowed him into the clearing, hurrying after him toward the outskirts of the tent. 

They swarmed him as he drew the horse to a halt. “We escaped a German camp. She’s a nurse. She’s hurt, and she’s sick. She needs medical attention _right now_.” 

Apparently hearing the commotion, a head nurse came rushing forward, pushing past the soldiers. 

Bellamy undid the loop around them. He knew if he moved first, she’d fall. 

“Someone hand her down. She can’t do it on her own. Watch the right leg! Don’t knock it.” 

It had been a while since he’d barked orders at anyone. He wondered if they could hear the desperation in his voice now. 

Two of the soldiers lifted her down from the horse, awkwardly trying to hold up someone who could no longer stand on her own.

“What’s wrong with her?” The nurse elbowed in next to him. “What’s happened?” She reached over to feel a pulse on Clarke, who was only barely hanging on to consciousness in the soldiers’ grasp.

“Give her to me,” he nearly snapped, taking her from them and hoisting her into his arms, cradling her to his chest. “She’s been shot in the leg. Days ago. It’s infected. She’s got typhus, too.” A few of the soldiers hastily stumbled backward, distancing themselves. “We’ve been stuck in a German prison camp for weeks. You have to help her _now._ ”

“She sounds like a lost cause, captain,” one of the soldiers to his right muttered.

“ _No, she’s not,_ ” Bellamy nearly yelled, his own arms trembling with fatigue. His muscles had begun to waste away after he’d been trapped in a prisoner’s hut for so long. 

“Follow me,” the nurse said brusquely, shouldering the men out of the way and heading for the tent. 

“Put her here,” the nurse nodded toward one of the few empty beds. “I’ll need to disinfect this wound immediately. One moment.” She left them, crossing the room to a cabinet.

Bellamy gently laid her down on the shoddy mattress covering the thin metal frame. Her glassy eyes blinked slowly, tracking motion almost in a delay. After a second or two, they roved up to him.

“Bellamy?” she wheezed, her voice almost nonexistent. 

He squatted, drawing himself down to her eye level and taking her hand. “Hm?”

“Please don’t leave,” she rasped out, her hand feeble, shaking in his, her cheeks deeply flushed from fever and cold. 

It was like she’d taken one of her little hands, reached into his chest, and squeezed his heart. 

“Never,” he murmured, lifting her hand to his cheek and turning his face to kiss her palm. 

He knew where they were. He didn’t care who saw. 

The nurse reappeared, a faint shadow of disapproval passing almost imperceptibly across her face before she set a tray of supplies on the nightstand.

“What’s her name, captain?” The nurse asked, dipping rags in some kind of antiseptic solution. “And unwrap that leg for me, while you’re at it.”

Bellamy reluctantly dropped Clarke’s hand and stood, moving down toward her leg. “Her name is Clarke Griffin. She was a nurse sent to the front lines as part of an experimental program, which I’ve since heard to be discontinued. She was part of my unit. We were captured weeks ago and put into a German camp. She’s been sick for longer than she’s been shot.”

The nurse frowned slightly at Clarke’s leg. “Well, it looks gruesome, but it’s good that you got here when you did. It will be salvageable, with proper care.”

Bellamy grimaced. It hadn’t even occurred to him that there was a chance she’d lose the leg. 

Clarke’s body tensed and she let out a strangled cry as the nurse held the antiseptic to her leg. Bellamy shifted anxiously from one foot to the other, trying to ignore the cold that was seeping in through his coat now that he was more or less standing still. 

“And you’ve had typhus before, captain?”

Bellamy nodded. 

“Good.” The nurse glanced up from Clarke’s leg. “Oh, she’s fainted. That’s probably for the best, you know.” 

Bellamy’s eyes snapped to Clarke’s face, and her eyes had fallen shut, her body now motionless. 

If she was passed out, she wouldn’t feel the pain as much. Maybe it _was_ for the best. 

Bellamy’s fist clenched behind his back as he forced himself to ask the question he was most afraid of. 

“Will she make it?”

His heart pounded. He could feel his pulse in his ears, in his chest, in his toes. His stomach churned, reminiscent of the old seasickness that used to ail him.

The nurse studied him for a moment, her face unreadable. “Too early to tell. She could go either way, at this point. If anything, it’s the typhus that will take her. I assume you broke out of the camp, yes?” 

Bellamy nodded again.

“Well, captain. If she lives, it will be because you got her out in time. Know that.” 

Bellamy tried to keep his breathing in check as her words washed over him. _Too early to tell. She could go either way._

He felt like he could throw up.

He couldn’t lose Clarke. Not after everything. He _couldn’t._

Blood roared in his ears as he watched the nurse continue to clean and dress her leg. 

“Can I stay with her tonight? I promised her I would.”

The nurse frowned, gauze in hand. “We cannot provide you with sleeping quarters. If you are to stay, you will have a chair, or the ground. Accommodations cannot be made specially for you, captain. No matter how much you care for the lass.”

Bellamy bit the inside of his cheek. There was no use in arguing against comments such as those anymore – he couldn’t deny them. They didn’t even cover the whole truth, the depth of what he felt. They fell quite short, actually. 

“I’ll take whatever I can,” he agreed. Sleeping on the floor was worth staying near her. “Do you have any men you could spare to send a message down into the trenches? I’d like our things sent up here. It’s been a very long time since we’ve had them.” 

“Send young Timmy over there,” she said flatly, not looking up from her work. “He’s a courier when we need him to be.”

Bellamy looked up to see a very wiry, baby-faced looking soldier standing in the nearest corner of the tent, his expression tired but wary. 

“Thank you,” he said, already crossing the room.

“Are you Timmy?”

The boy nodded.

“Can you send word to Company B, 1st Canadian division, to have Captain Blake and Nurse Griffin’s packs sent up here? We’ll be needing our things. The 1st Division is still here, right?”

Bellamy hadn’t considered that they might have been reassigned. Now that he thought of it, he _had_ only seen British uniforms since riding back into camp.

“Yes sir, in the relief trenches. I’ll go at once,” Timmy nodded, tugging his overcoat tighter against him. 

“Thank you,” Bellamy said, relieved, patting the boy’s shoulder as he disappeared into the night. 

He made his way back to Clarke, who was still out. The nurse was gone, but a wooden chair had appeared at the bedside. 

His adrenaline finally wearing off, he sank exhausted into the seat. 

… 

Clarke blinked against early morning light that was filtering into the cracks of the hospital tent. Her entire body felt like it was weighed down with lead, and it ached miserably with even the slightest movement. She twitched as a wet, hoarse cough racked her body.

As her vision swam into focus and she tried to regain her bearings, she saw Bellamy stirring next to her, lifting his head from his arms, where he’d been crouched over, sleeping against the edge of her mattress.

Had he slept, hunched over like that, all night? 

“Clarke,” he said, the word cracking over a yawn. He reached for her hand just under the edge of the blanket. “How do you feel?”

She opened her mouth to reply, but her voice caught in her scratchy throat. Why did her lungs feel so heavy? It was as if they refused to fill whenever she tried to inhale. 

She was having trouble focusing her sight. Why was she so dizzy, if she was laying down?

Clarke thought she could make out a frown on Bellamy’s face as he leaned toward her. She felt the backs of his fingers press against her forehead. The chill of his skin on hers made her shiver. 

“Nurse?” Bellamy motioned over one of the women milling about the tent. “She feels warm. Could you take her temperature?”

“And who are you?” Clarke heard the nurse say. 

Clarke wanted to shake her head. _It’s Bellamy, silly._ Everyone should know Bellamy.

“Captain Blake, ma’am,” he replied. “We just escaped a German camp last night. She’s been very sick for days, and since she was assigned to my unit, I wanted to make sure she was all right.”

In her fevered brain, Clarke felt a twinge of insecurity. She _hoped_ that Bellamy cared more about her than just as a member of his unit. 

“Very well,” the nurse answered, and Clarke was suddenly aware of the tip of a thermometer being shoved under her tongue. With mighty effort, she suppressed the urge to cough. 

“Oh,” the nurse breathed quietly, staring at the thermometer. “Oh, my. What did you say was wrong with the patient?”

“I didn’t, but typhus, and an infected gunshot wound to the leg,” Clarke heard Bellamy answer swiftly. 

“The infection,” the nurse whispered. “Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Doctor Marlborough! Doctor!” 

Confused at the nurse’s frantic demeanor, Clarke shifted abruptly, trying to lift herself up onto her elbows. 

She felt blood rushing in her head, and everything went dark.

… 

“She’s fainted,” Bellamy said fervently, scrambling to his feet. “What’s wrong with her? What’s going on?”

The nurse motioned for the doctor in the corner to come over. She glanced up nervously at Bellamy. “I think it’s the infection, captain. Her fever was at 103°. It’s much too high. A few more degrees, and it will cause-”

“Brain damage,” the alleged Dr. Marlborough interrupted with a twitch of his mustache, touching her forehead in a clinical manner. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Typhus” and “an infected gunshot wound,” Bellamy and the nurse answered disjointedly, their words clashing. 

The doctor studied Clarke for the briefest of seconds. Bellamy’s heart was heaving in his chest like an anvil. What was happening? What could be done? He hated the feeling of helplessness that washed over him like an icy ocean wave. 

“We need to try and bring her temperature down,” the doctor finally said, glancing up and down the room. “She’s the only female patient in here. Some modesty is required. Fetch the curtains, Martha,” the doctor instructed the nurse, who went hurrying off down the aisle of beds. 

“How will you do that?” Bellamy asked, his voice as thin as his tired nerves. 

The doctor raised an eyebrow mildly. “Strip her. Bathe her with cool water. It won’t be hard, with this weather,” he noted, nodding toward the outside. “First week of December, and it certainly feels like it.”

A team of nurses arrived with makeshift curtains on wire frames, which could be arranged to form a makeshift emergency room, or, in this case, provide some privacy. 

“You’ll need to step out, captain,” one of the nurses spoke up brusquely. “We’ll be stripping her down to her underthings. Not for a soldier’s eyes.”

Bellamy swallowed down his objection as he glanced between the nurse and the doctor. No one here needed to know that he’d already seen her partially undressed, many times before this. That he’d even undressed her _himself_ , with his own two trembling hands. No, there would be no explaining away that bit of reputation-ruining information. 

Gritting his teeth, he ducked outside of the new curtained walls surrounding Clarke’s bed. He hated staying out here, not being able to see her. They’d been together for so long – having her out of his sight now, _especially now,_ went against every nerve ending in his body. 

He began to pace. 

He _ought_ to think of warning her mother. But why worry her? There was nothing she could do. She would never make it across the ocean in time if. . .Bellamy pushed away that thought. No, writing to her without knowing the outcome of this would accomplish nothing. 

But he might have to, soon. As much as he didn’t want to consider the possibility.

Just to give himself something to do, he bent down and gathered up her pack that had been brought up last night with his own and rifled carefully through it. 

There it was. A letter from Clarke’s mother, complete with a return address for their flat in Halifax. 

He shoved it into his inner coat pocket. He had the information if he needed it. 

He prayed he wouldn’t have to use it. 

He continued to pace. 

The minutes ate away at him like a disease, like a parasite. 

A horrible coughing sound from behind the curtain made him nearly jump out of his skin.

“Bellamy!” Clarke’s hoarse, panicked voice came from inside.

He turned on his heel in an instant, ducking inside the curtain.

“Captain!” One of the nurses admonished, a damp cloth dripping in her hand. The covers had been stripped back from Clarke’s bed, and she lay there in her shift, damp with the cool water they’d been bathing her with.

“What’s wrong, Clarke?” As he crouched down next to her, he realized she didn’t even have to answer. 

Her hand trembled weakly just under her chin, spattered with blood. A speck of it dotted the corner of her mouth. The doctor was leaning over her, a stethoscope to her chest. 

“I think the typhus has given way for pneumonia to set in,” the doctor said grimly, shooting Bellamy a brief look of consternation. “Her fever is not subsiding. This girl is too ill for this field hospital. She needs to be taken to the coast, put on a hospital ship immediately. One that will take her home. Where is she from?”

“Halifax,” Bellamy answered rotely, wrapping his hand around Clarke’s wrist to keep it from trembling. Her eyes were so fevered, so clouded, that he wasn’t even sure she was fully cognizant of him. 

Though he was cold, beads of sweat began to gather on his brow just beneath his hat brim. 

He was frightened. 

“Good, a port city. They will treat her on one of the ships bound for it. But she must be moved as soon as possible. Nancy, please go arrange for room for Miss Griffin here on the morning medical transport.” 

A small nurse with a curly pile of blonde hair nodded and disappeared from the makeshift room. 

Halifax. Seven days of sailing away from here. 

“I’m sorry, could you tell me the date?” Bellamy asked one of the remaining nurses. He’d lost all track of the dates during their time in the camp. 

“December 4th,” she replied distractedly. Bellamy nodded.

If all went well, Clarke would be home for Christmas. 

And nearly 3,000 miles away from him. 

He couldn’t lose Clarke.

But if she didn’t go now, he _would_ lose Clarke. 

“Bell,” she wheezed, losing the second half of his name, her voice nearly inaudible. 

“I’m here,” he reassured her, gently squeezing her arm. “I’m here.”

“And you should not be,” one of the other nurses interrupted. “Captain, you’ll kindly leave while we re-dress her and prepare her for transport.”

Bellamy frowned. Surely if he already saw her now, there was no need for him to be absent while putting her clothes _back_ on. 

“Captain, please,” the nurse repeated sternly. 

There was no use in fighting this particular battle. He leaned down to kiss Clarke’s fevered temple, and her eyes sluggishly followed him.

“I’ll be right outside, I promise,” he told her, keeping his gaze on her as he ducked back out behind the curtain. 

Outside, he nearly bumped nose-to-nose with Miller. 

“Bellamy,” Miller exclaimed, briefly throwing his arms around his captain’s shoulders. “My god, man. We thought you were goners.” 

Surprised, Bellamy hugged him back. 

“Just prisoners. We only managed to escape last night,” Bellamy explained, struggling to keep his brain power present in the conversation. It kept straying back to the other side of the curtain. 

“I can’t believe you managed to escape! We – we wanted to send search parties, but the commanding officers wouldn’t allow it. Said it was too dangerous. I’m – I’m so sorry-”

“It’s all right, Miller,” Bellamy reassured him, clapping his shoulder. “Really.”

“How is Clarke?” He asked nervously, glancing around Bellamy to the curtains. “Not good, is it? Can’t be.”

Bellamy’s jaw clenched. Every time he had to say it out loud to someone else, it felt more and more real. “She’s very sick. She was shot in the leg – it’s infected. She’s got a bad fever too, and pneumonia, the doctor thinks.”

Miller’s eyes widened, and in them, Bellamy saw something damning, something he’d rather not acknowledge. 

“They’re putting her on the transport to the coast this morning for a hospital ship that will take her home. I’m going to try and see if they’ll let me escort her, just to the ship docks. Just to be safe.”

Miller shifted uncomfortably. “That’s actually why I’m here. Colonel Kane heard you’re back. He’s sent me on his orders to bring you down to the trenches. We’re being rotated back up to the front lines tonight.”

Straight back to the front lines. Bellamy’s spent, overloaded mind could hardly grasp it. 

“Of course. The transport route isn’t far, I’ll be back down there by tonight.” Bellamy nodded, trying to ignore the deflated feeling in his chest.

Miller’s eyes shifted away from Bellamy’s. “I was explicitly ordered to bring you back with me right now, Bellamy. I’m sorry.”

Now. Right now. 

He was supposed to walk away from Clarke right now, not knowing when he would see her again. Not even knowing if it was the _last_ time he’d ever see her.

No. 

No. He couldn’t reconcile this. 

This couldn’t be the last time. There was so much left unsaid, undone. 

He’d promised her. Promised he wouldn’t leave her. 

Bellamy’s mind felt as if it was short-circuiting. He realized that his hands had begun to tremble. That he was a few shaky breaths away from tears. 

This wasn’t _happening._ It couldn’t be. 

“I can’t-”

“Step aside please! Everyone make way!” a group of privates had arrived carrying a stretcher, and Bellamy turned to see that the curtains had been ripped back. The nurses gathered around the bed, preparing to shift Clarke from it to the stretcher. 

“Transport’s leaving soon, we have to move now,” one of the privates announced, waving his hand in a quick circle, motioning for everyone to hurry up. 

Bellamy stepped away from Miller, his comrade forgotten. 

Though her body lolled limply on the stretcher like a ragdoll, Bellamy found Clarke’s eyes on him, tears leaking from their corners and falling onto her deeply flushed cheeks. 

“I don’t want to go,” she choked out, her hand feebly stretching out for his as the team carrying the stretcher turned, beginning to walk her toward one of the tent exits. 

He grasped her hand, hurrying alongside her. 

“I know,” he said, his voice catching on the ache in his chest that was rippling through him. “I’ll be right here where you left me, all right? We’ll find each other, Clarke. I have to believe that.” 

“I’ll come back,” she wheezed, nodding. “Find you.”

They’d reached the transport, which had already been loaded with three other wounded men. Only a spot for her remained. One of the privates who’d snatched up Clarke’s pack tossed it into the truck.

“Be safe,” she replied faintly, desperation lacing her weak voice. 

“Get well,” he pleaded, tears catching in his throat. 

This couldn’t be it. She couldn’t be leaving.

There hadn’t been enough time. They hadn’t had enough _time._

They were hoisting her up into the covered truck now, preparing to secure her for the ride. Her hand broke from his grasp, and he saw her reaching for him as she was being lifted away.

Everything in his body was screaming. 

“ _I love you_ ,” he called out desperately as the truck doors slammed shut, the wheels slowly turning through the mud as the truck began to move.

It was driving away. He strode after it through the mud, his heart throbbing. Letting it out of his sight felt like the end of everything. 

He began to jog. 

The truck approached a turn, seconds away from disappearing from sight.

“I love you,” he repeated, his voice low, broken this time. There was no one around to hear it. 

Bellamy was surprised to realize that the wetness on his cheeks was from his own tears, and not the drizzling rain that had settled over the cold gray of the morning. 

Bursting at the broken seams, he let out a roar of desperation into the thick, swirling mist.

His shoulders slumped. It felt as if all of the wind had been sucked out of him. He was suddenly acutely aware of just how exhausted he was. 

He turned away, knowing he had to make his way back down to the trenches. Colonel’s orders. 

Bellamy realized that this was the first time he’d be in a trench without Clarke since they’d arrived here together over two and a half years ago. 

He didn’t know how to do this without her anymore. 

She had to come back. She would survive, and she would come back. Or maybe the war would end, and he would find her back across the Atlantic. He refused to even imagine any alternative. 

He thought of the letter tucked safely away in his breast pocket. The letter with her home address written neatly across the back. 

He could write to her. She would be at home, and he could write to her there. 

As he slouched and stumbled through the mud, he prayed fervently that soon, they would meet again. 

… 

Clarke shifted suddenly into consciousness, aware of the darkness behind her closed eyelids and the dryness that was sticky and heavy on her tongue.

She swallowed painfully. A cacophonous buzzing, a murmur of sound rose to meet her ears. It sounded like she was in a crowded room.

Where was she, really?

Her pupils ached as she opened her eyes and squinted into the airy, natural light that filtered into the room. She lifted her head feebly, glancing from left to right. Two parallel rows of hospital beds ran down the length of a long, narrow room. The floor was covered with rich, shiny hardwood, and there were rectangular windows dotting along the opposite wall. As she propped herself onto her elbow and shook off a swirl of dizziness, she squinted out toward them to find a view of. . .the sea?

Was she on the promenade deck of a ship?

“Miss Griffin,” a nurse chirped cheerfully, materializing next to her seemingly out of thin air. “My goodness, you’re finally awake!”

“...Finally?” Clarke frowned.

“Yes, love. You’ve been asleep for three days! Not that any of us blame you. Pneumonia _and_ an infected bullet wound? What a disaster!” The nurse reached for a nearby pitcher of water and filled a glass, holding it out to Clarke, who took it eagerly and drained it in a few gulps.

Clarke’s mind was stumbling, struggling to grasp onto the last things she could remember. Feeling frozen inside the field hospital. . .coughing up blood. . .Bellamy’s hand gripping hers. . .being loaded onto a truck. 

Leaving Bellamy behind. Her heart twisted at the thought.

Those memories were hazy at best. Had three days really passed between then and now? 

It appeared she was on a hospital ship. Where were they headed?

A moment of alarm rippled through her as Clarke recalled what had been ailing her previously. She glanced down and sighed with relief as she realized that her right leg, while heavily bandaged, was still all there.

“Uh, nurse…” Clarke trailed off.

“Nurse Turner,” the woman spoke up, giving Clarke a gentle smile as she refilled her water glass. 

“Nurse Turner, can you tell me where this ship is headed?”

The nurse tilted her head. “Well, we were headed to Halifax, but I heard this morning that the course has been redirected to St. John in New Brunswick. We’ll be landing four days from now. December 11th.”

Clarke’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. So she would be going home, then. Not to England, where she knew no one. But why the change in course?

“Why not Halifax?” Clarke asked, sipping her water more slowly this time. She needed to pace herself, she knew, if she didn’t want to just vomit it all back up. “It’s the bigger port, is it not? I’m from there. My mother and I live just off the harbor.” 

The nurse’s otherwise ruddy face paled. “The harbor?”

Clarke frowned. “Yes? What about it?” 

What was going on?

The nurse studied her for just a moment too long – long enough to raise Clarke’s suspicions. 

“There’s no place for us to properly dock in the Halifax harbor, I’ve heard. Besides, St. John is just a quick ferry ride over to your island, is it not? I wouldn’t know. I’m a Winnipeg girl myself. Anyhow, why don’t I fetch you some hot soup? It’s been days since you’ve eaten. You really ought to have something before you start wasting away, yes? We’ll start you slow.”

Without another word, the nurse turned and walked briskly away down the promenade aisle. 

Something about the conversation they’d just had felt strange to Clarke, but she couldn’t pinpoint what. Then again, she certainly wasn’t used to conversation lately. She’d been too ill to talk coherently for nearly a week – more now, she guessed, since she’d been passed out for so long, and before that she’d really only spoken at length to Bellamy, someone she viewed by now not so much as a standard partner in conversation, but more of an extension of her own self. 

_Bellamy_. The loss of his presence by her side already ached, even though she’d only been awake for five minutes or so now. She hadn’t been anywhere without him in months, and his absence from her felt like the gap that appeared after the loss of a tooth – freshly startling and unsettling with every move. 

She wondered when she would see him again. _If_ she would see him again. She knew he was a captain, and captains never got to just sit back and watch it all unfold; he’d be sent straight back down into the trenches once he’d been debriefed and examined. 

Right back into the mouth of danger, but this time, without her to keep an eye out, without her to stitch up his wounds. 

She wondered if she’d be sent back to the front at all. She knew the program they’d hoped to begin with her had not been continued, but surely – surely they’d let her return to her own unit, if the war was still raging steady?

There was too much uncertainty. It made her pulse thread, unsettled in her veins. 

She knew this much – she’d finally get to spend another Christmas with her mother. And as soon as she got home, she’d send a letter to Bellamy. 

Maybe she’d finally find the bravery to tell him she loved him. The distance and the words on paper emboldened one in a way that nerves often smothered when declarations were delivered face to face.

And it was time. He deserved to know.

Clarke knew that society dictated a man must speak first of his affections, lest the woman come across as too forward. 

But they’d been at war for three years now. To hell with society. 

War had a way of stripping back trivial things and revealing what truly mattered, what really held the most importance at the end of the day. 

Yes, she would write him of her feelings. She’d mail it as soon as she landed. 

Clarke sipped the rest of her water and waited for Nurse Turner to come back, so that she might ask for a pen and some paper.

…

Bellamy sat in his somewhat cramped new officer’s dugout near the front lines. There’d been some kind of tacit acknowledgment amongst the higher-ranking officers that, since Clarke was no longer here, he would no longer need a double-dugout. Clarke staying with him was something that no one had ever really talked about – just silently accepted and swept under the rug. Now, there was similar silence in assigning him to a smaller room with one bed and a small, rickety table. 

The pen in his hand trembled as it lingered over the paper. 

_Dear Clarke,_ he wrote. _I hope this letter finds you, and finds you healing. Maybe even finds you well._

He paused. How much should he say? Was it unwise to write his heart out here on paper like this? What if someone else opened the mail? Another officer? God forbid, Clarke’s mother? His stomach turned further at the thought that she would never get the letter at all, that she’d been too far gone for the doctors on the hospital ship to save.

Bellamy bit the inside of his cheek hard.

He’d just spent days fearing she wouldn’t live to see the sunrise. It was past time for hesitations and cowardice. 

He continued on. 

_I just wanted to write to let you know that the last thing that I said to you – I meant it. I love you. I think I’ve meant it for years now, and I’ve just been too afraid of feeling it. I’m sorry I never said it sooner._

_You’ve only been gone for two days, Clarke, but already your absence weighs on me. We’ve been doing this together for so long, haven’t we? It’s been so long that I’m not sure I know how to do this without you. I’m being sent on a raid later tonight with some of the men – Miller is one of them, and he’s still alive at least, thank god – and it’s so strange to think that if I’m wounded, it won’t be you who mends me when I return. It’s not a thought that I like to dwell on._

_I can almost see you biting your lower lip as you read this. Don’t. Your lips don’t deserve it._

Bellamy scoffed at himself and crossed out the last bit. It sounded much smarmier on paper than it had in his head. Why was this so difficult? Perhaps because he’d never had to use paper as a go-between for the two of them before. Because intimacy was so much more simply expressed in a twining of fingers or a brush of the lips than it was when you had to craft it from the written word. 

He started the paragraph again.

_I hope Halifax is as lovely now as it was that one Christmas when we visited. Two years ago now, wasn’t it? It feels like it was in a different century. Visit the house in Seabright, if you can. I know it makes you smile._

_I have to go now to get briefed on the raid we’re going out on later. I hope you find more peace where you are than there is here, princess. You deserve it._

_All my love,_

_Bellamy._

He crossed over the omitted line one more time, folded up the letter, and sealed it. He’d drop it off with the mailers on his way to the officers’ meeting place. He’d be thrilled if it reached her in time for Christmas, but that was less than three weeks away. His hopes were low. 

As Bellamy deposited the letter into the outgoing mail bag, his heart skipped a beat. 

… 

Bellamy breathed heavily, the icy cold air puffing out of his lungs like smoke as he sank down in a line next to his men on the trench floor’s duckboards. 

The raid had taken much longer than they’d expected. They’d been gone for three days instead of one. They’d chased a pocket of Germans away from a spy spot they’d been informed of with a measure of success, but it had taken longer than they’d planned for to make it back, thanks to a company of German soldiers camping in a nearby forest. All of them had made it back alive, thankfully, with only a broken finger and some nasty scratches between them. 

Jackson had come over from a neighboring company and was currently splinting Miller’s broken finger. Bellamy had a tear in the shoulder of his coat where he’d been grazed by a bullet, but he’d only need a few stitches. 

“Not deep at all,” Jackson said briskly, wiping the scratch with antiseptic. “Quick stitch and you’re done.” 

Bellamy couldn’t help but notice that Jackson’s hands were swifter, more business-like, and less concerned with causing pain than Clarke’s had been. He stitched almost too quickly, the thread pulling at Bellamy’s skin with a fair amount of discomfort. 

Bellamy counted the days on his fingers. Clarke’s ship would be landing in two days. She was nearly home. He wished blindly, fervently, that she had pulled through. The thought of not knowing had made him sick to his stomach for days. 

“You boys got off lucky,” Jackson said, gathering his things. With a brief nod, he was off. Bellamy watched as Miller’s eyes followed the medic down the trench corridor, and wondered what was on his mind. 

“Any of you boys from Halifax?” A newer member of Company B asked, sidling up to the recently-returned raid party. He stomped his feet against the duckboards, trying to generate warmth. 

“Not Halifax, but Dartmouth, just across the harbor. Why do you ask?” Said Johnny, yet another new private, who Bellamy thought had just performed well on his first raiding trip.

“You all have missed the news, then,” the other soldier asked – Martin, Bellamy thought his name was. “I suppose that’s fair. You’ve been gone for days.” 

“What news?” Bellamy interrupted, his pulse quickening uncomfortably. Why was he asking about Halifax? What was going on?

“The explosion, mate,” Martin said. “Don’t worry, Johnny, I heard Dartmouth fared better than Halifax, but I don’t know if that means much, to be honest.” 

Johnny paled. “What explosion, Martin?”

Bellamy felt his own muscles tense, fearing the response. 

Martin folded his arms across his chest, shivering. “Two ships collided right in the harbor. December 6th, it was. Three days ago. Day you all left, now that I think of it. Tons of explosives. Much of downtown Halifax has been blasted into rubble, I reckon, from the few reports we’ve gotten. Hundreds dead, but they’re expecting the final count to be in the thousands. Doesn’t help that there’s blizzards coming, and so many of them are now without any good shelter. Hope your family is all right, Johnno.”

Johnny slumped against the trench wall, dumbstruck.

The nausea that had been eating away at Bellamy for days now heightened. 

His first emotion was – shamefully, he thought to himself – relief.

Relief that Clarke hadn’t made it home yet. That she hadn’t been in town when it had been blasted to smithereens. 

After his mind had latched on to that, he ached for her. He knew their flat was near the harbor. He knew that her mother worked at a hospital on the harbor.

From what it sounded like, there was a significant chance that Clarke’s mother was now dead, or, at best, seriously injured. 

That Clarke would arrive home to find the city in ruins, and to possibly find herself an orphan as well, with nowhere to go but an empty house that was now in some undetermined state of disrepair. It had been two years since she’d last seen it, and no one had been living there. It was already a bit shoddy when he’d seen it back during their Christmas leave. 

He buried his face in one of his hands, grimacing. 

She didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve to be so sick, so hurt, and to finally make it home to find everything she’d been looking forward to destroyed. 

He wondered if she was awake, aware. If she already knew, had heard the news travel round the hospital ship. 

Duty be damned. Right now, more than anything, he wanted to be there with her. To make sure that when she got off that ship – wherever it was headed now – that she wouldn’t have to face the wreckage alone. 

Everything was falling apart for her now, and for the first time since they’d met, he couldn’t be there to catch her when she fell. 

“Everyone, get some rest,” he muttered, standing abruptly and disappearing into his dugout. 

Despite his bone-chilling exhaustion, he lay hopelessly awake for hours that night, staring at the wall and wishing desperately that he was laying next to Clarke instead. 

He thought of his letter. Of the fact that the place it was addressed to almost certainly no longer existed.

She’d never get it now.

… 

“Any tea for you, miss?” an attendant on the ferry bent down near Clarke’s seat. The boat took over three hours to cross the Bay of Fundy from St. John to Nova Scotia, and they were only a half-hour into the journey.

“No, thank you,” Clarke waved away the uniformed man. 

She had no appetite. Every mile she got closer to home, the more nauseated she felt. She’d bought a newspaper from a stand while waiting to board the ferry, and the photographs of the wreckage alone had made her run to a washroom and dry heave over a toilet. 

It was too soon after the disaster for there to be a manifest of the dead. No neat, printed lists in the papers to announce if her mother had lived or died. No, it was never going to be that simple. She felt that it was information she was going to have to search for, to beg for from a cold and unfeeling universe. 

Clarke leaned her head against the wall of the cabin and closed her eyes, a memory of sitting with Bellamy on a much larger, much grander ship flickering before her mind.

The letter that she had written to Bellamy about her feelings on the hospital ship had never made it to a mailbag.

Later in the day that she’d finally regained consciousness, she’d heard about the explosion in Halifax. Caught enough words, snatches of conversation from passerby to gather the gist of what was wrong.

After that, she’d hobbled up to the closest patrolling doctor and grabbed him by the lapels, demanding that he tell her what had happened.

The remaining time she’d spent on the hospital ship passed in a daze. She vacillated between being paralyzed with fear over the unknown and complete numbness, an island of blunted feelings where nothing could touch her.

She’d ripped up her letter to Bellamy and tossed it overboard. Romantic inclinations felt utterly ridiculous in the shadow of what was going on now.

And yet.

And yet, as she lay anxiously awake at night, unable to sleep due to a combination of nerves and her healing leg paining her, she wished for him. 

She’d been so long at his side that she’d forgotten how to endure a crisis without his shoulder there for her to lean on. 

Her insides churned, leaving her barely able to breathe, as aches of fear for her mother and aches of missing Bellamy battled within her. 

On the day before the ship was to dock, the nurses finally allowed Clarke to stand on her own and walk about the decks with her crutches, which they’d had sawed down just for her – turns out the crutches were made with soldiers in mind, and not for the stature of a nurse. 

She hobbled along a covered portion of the promenade that hadn’t yet been converted to a ward and stopped to stare out over the sea, watching the waves pitch and froth. 

She realized with a start how little fear she felt. She used to be so uneasy about traveling on the open sea – with good reason. But the _Lusitania_ had sunk over two and a half years ago now, and she’d seen so many terrors since then that she now only felt it as another notch in the belt.

She couldn’t let herself hold on to the fear of every near-death experience she had. No, that wouldn’t do. If she did that, she’d be institutionalized by now. 

Now the only fear she was able to feel was fear for her mother, for her home. For everyone she’d ever known that had lived there. 

Fear for Bellamy, too. Wherever he was, whatever he might be doing. It was impossible for her to forget that war was still raging, burning its way through Europe, and that Bellamy was still at the helm, now without her. 

The sudden, low groan of a foghorn startled Clarke, sending her rigid.

She wondered if there would ever be a time again in her life where she wasn’t sent into a panic by sudden loud noises. 

She couldn’t imagine it. 

… 

“Halifax? I’m sorry, miss, but you’ll have heard what’s happened. A young lady like you shouldn’t be headed over there alone. It’s in ruins. Where would you stay?” The ticket seller frowned at her with false sympathy, the condescension in his voice grating on Clarke’s nerves. 

“I don’t care where I’ll stay. I’ve just spent the last two years sleeping in holes in the dirt. Just sell me a ticket,” Clarke demanded. 

“I can’t in good conscience-”

Clarke grit her teeth. “Listen, mister. I’m a nurse. I can help with the wounded. I’ve been serving with soldiers in France for most of the war. Trust me when I say I can handle the fright of it. One ticket, _please._ ”

Clarke could see the debate in the ticket seller’s mind waning. He wasn’t in the mood to argue any further, it seemed, and would much prefer to just have her out of his face. She sighed with relief as he handed her the slip of paper. 

“It boards in fifteen minutes, so run along,” he grumbled, waving her off. 

Clarke welcomed the salty brace of the sea wind on her already-chapped face as she hobbled up to the open-air platform. It was freezing, icy to the bone, but it felt like home.

Whatever home was now. 

Clarke frowned as she looked up at the clock that hung on one of the platform walls. It was winter now, and the train would take hours to reach the other side of the island. 

It would be dark by the time she arrived. That would make it all the more difficult to find answers, to find shelter.

But that didn’t matter.

She had to find her mother.

After the train pulled into the station, she noticed that less than half of its seats began to fill alongside her. The only other people traveling in this direction seemed to be emergency personnel – nurses, doctors, men with shovels and other debris-clearing tools. A few electrical engineers, from what she could overhear in conversation.

She supposed she should have expected it.

No one was itching to visit a city that had been scattered to the winds. 

As the train began to move, Clarke felt bile rise in her throat in fear of what she would find once it arrived at its destination. 

With effort, she swallowed it down and closed her eyes once more, resting against the back of the seat and propping her crutches against the doorframe. 

It felt like all she could do lately was rest. She guessed that it was a defensible thing to do, given all that had happened.

And anyway, she had the feeling that her time to rest was about to abruptly come to a halt. 

The reliable chug and the sway of the train car rocked her into a fitful sleep.

… 

Clarke had planned to go home first, to the neighborhood where her and her mother’s flat was located. But, as she hailed one of the straggling cabs and gave him the address, her heart sank as she had to change her plans. 

“That block has been decimated, sorry miss. You won’t be finding anything much there, n’ certainly no living people,” the cabbie said apologetically.

Clarke swallowed thickly, trying to ignore the ache in her leg as she leaned heavily on her crutches. 

“Can – can you take me to Camp Hill hospital then? The new one? I know my mother started working there in the fall. Come to think of it, that’s likely where she’d be right now anyway. She’s a nurse, you see.”

“Same as her daughter, eh?” The cabbie asked, nodding down at Clarke’ s frayed but unusually clean uniform. Some blessed soul had thought to toss her things into the hospital transport with her, and she’d been lucky enough to have her pack with her on the hospital ship, which mercifully had a laundry room. 

“Yes,” Clarke nodded. “Can you still get me down there?”

“I can,” he agreed, and motioned for her to hop in. “It’s been real busy down there since the explosion, though, I ought to warn you. Hundreds of folks being brought in needing help. It’s the closest hospital to the neighborhoods that got hit by the worst of it.”

“I can handle it,” Clarke reassured him, sliding into the backseat with some difficulty. The driver handed her crutches and bag in with her and hopped into the driver’s seat. 

“God, I’ve forgotten how truly cold it gets here,” Clarke muttered, rubbing at her arms with the threadbare mittens her mother had sent to her last Christmas as a present. “France was cold, but not _this_ cold.”

“Yeh’ve come from the front, then?” The cabbie asked, sounding impressed. “Lordy, but I don’t meet many nurses who’ve been all the way up. I’m only sorry that you don’t have something nicer to come home to then, miss.” 

Clarke’s stomach roiled as they drew closer and closer to the hospital. The sun had set, and with so many electricity grids down, it was nearly impossible to make out anything further than her immediate surroundings. Even so, she could sense the wreckage welling up at her from the inky quiet. Right now, these streets should be sprinkled with lights and bustling with people heading home from work or up the street for tea. But no – all she could make out were lanterns here and there, and eerie, unsettling silence. 

The blood in her veins raced, begging for her mother to be alive; tired, and working a long shift at the hospital, but alive. 

“Camp Hill, here you are,” the cabbie announced, and Clarke quickly fished a few coins from her bag.

“Best of luck to ya, missy,” the cabbie called, and he was off. 

Clarke looked up at the new hospital building. Every window was lit up – the electric lights were working. The city must have toiled to make sure that the hospital had kept its power; they needed it now more than anyone. 

Clarke winced as she hobbled up the front steps, resenting the weakness in her right leg and annoyed with the pain that she fought to ignore. She had bigger problems right now, and her recovering leg was just getting in her way. 

As she pulled open the front door, she was greeted by a frenzied bustle of hospital personnel crowding the lobby and corridors beyond, escorting patients and rushing around with supplies in hand.

How would she find her mother in all the hubbub? She didn’t think she could make it up all the flights of stairs, and the elevator on the other side of the lobby was marked off with an “out of order” sign across it. 

A man in a doctor’s coat emerged from one of the corridors, a clipboard in hand, and Clarke decided to take a chance on him.

“Sir,” she called, swinging over on her crutches and her good leg, trying to balance her bag in her left land. “Sir, if you could help me, I’m looking for-”

The doctor scoffed at her. “A nurse on crutches? What are you even doing here? You can’t help us in this state. You’re useless. Go home.”

Clarke’s cheeks flushed. “I’m – I’m not here to help. I’m looking for my mother.”

The doctor’s gaze was already back on his clipboard. “List of patients is kept in the office on floor two.”

Clarke cleared her throat. “No. She’s a nurse. One of the head nurses, actually. Abigail Griffin? I’m her daughter. Clarke. Could you tell me which floor she’s working on?”

The doctor’s gaze snapped to hers. “You’re Clarke Griffin?”

Clarke’s stomach clenched. Why did that grab his attention? Her skin crawled. “Yes, I am. Please tell me where I can find my mother. From what I gather, our flat has been destroyed, so I figured she’d most likely be here.”

“Miss Griffin, I’m…”

Clarke’s stomach began to sink. 

It was over now, wasn’t it? This was it.

“Helen, could you come here?” The doctor called out to an older nurse, who’d been crouching to speak to a tired-looking man sitting on the lobby floor. 

Helen strode over with weary purpose, rubbing at her brow. “Yes, doctor?”

“This here is Clarke Griffin. Nurse Griffin’s daughter. She’s come looking for her mother. Will you please speak with her?” 

And with that, the doctor turned on his heel and left, his head bowed. 

The nurse – Helen, apparently – glanced down at Clarke. Was her lower lip trembling?

“Hello, dear. Are you all right? What’s happened to your leg?” The nurse grasped her arm gently, helping her stand against her uncomfortable crutches, clearly avoiding the subject that lay heavy between them. 

“I was shot in France,” Clarke muttered. “But that isn’t important. Where’s my mother?” 

Helen’s lips puckered inward, and her face paled. “I was one of the head nurses alongside Abby. She was on her way to work on the morning of the explosion, you see. And, well, she. . .she never made it, dear.”

Clarke felt acid rising in her throat again. “Do you mean that she’s missing?”

The nurse shook her head, her eyes beginning to glisten over her worn expression. “No. No, I’m afraid not. They found her the day after, on the street a few blocks from your home. They notified us, her place of work, since no one knew how to contact you. They buried her just two days ago with some of the other victims. I went to bid her farewell with some of the other nurses – Maxine and Margie. Up at Mount Olivet Cemetery. Near the graves of the poor souls who died on the _Titanic._ ”

For the first time, Clarke was grateful for her crutches. Without them, she was sure she would have fallen down. 

“I’m so sorry, dear,” Helen said in a watery voice, squeezing Clarke’s arm gently. “I’m so sorry. If you’ll hold on just one moment–” the woman fished around for something in her pocket. “We saved this for you. I’ve been holding on to it in case we found a way to mail it to you. We’ve been so busy in here, you know…”

The nurse held out a fine chain with two golden bands looped onto it, dangling gently in the light.

It was the necklace with her father’s wedding ring that her mother used to wear. Her wedding ring now joined it, smaller, clinking quietly against it. 

Clarke felt her nose run, and she became aware for the first time of the tears bathing her face. 

“I know you might think you have nowhere to go,” Helen continued quietly. “But Abby mentioned a few times about the house in Seabright. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but that part of the bay is all right. Only a few windows knocked out here and there. You have somewhere to go, dear, if you cannot find friends here. And please, please come back here to me if you need anything. It would be the least I could do. Really.”

Clarke thought she thanked the woman. She couldn’t really be sure. All she could remember was looping the chain around her neck and turning numbly to go, disappearing back out the front door in a shaking blur. 

Her awareness of her surroundings faded as she sank onto the front steps, shivering with cold as she wept. She clutched her parents’ rings in her hands until the metal bit into her skin.

They were both gone now.

And she hadn’t been able to say goodbye to either one.

She thought of her mother, walking alone to work, living alone for years while Clarke was off in France. Dying alone in the street.

She cried harder.

“I’m so sorry, mom,” she gasped, choking down air, trying not to spit up onto the concrete steps. 

People continued to come and go in and out of the hospital. No one spared her more than a passing look.

Clarke guessed that a weeping girl on the street wasn’t so unusual of a sight lately.

She had no idea how long she’d sat there, shoulders shaking, lungs heaving. When she was finally able to breathe again, wincing at the cold air stinging her lungs, she painfully hoisted herself to her feet and began to limp. 

There was little light to go by. Only lanterns here and there, small campfires burning in the streets every few hundred feet. 

The closer she got to her street, the worse the rubble grew. By the time she’d turned the last corner, she was breathing heavily, agonizingly climbing over piles of brick and debris.

And there it was. 

The building she and her mother had lived in was now just a shell. Shattered glass and broken stone lay strewn about like building blocks knocked down by a fussy toddler. 

But the Seabright house was miles away, and Clarke didn’t know where else to go.

Exhaustion seeping into her bones and settling next to her grief, she shuffled painfully into the blown-out first floor, toward the space that lay just beneath where her old home used to be. 

In the dim light, Clarke could hardly make out the strange, blocky shape that lay back near the crumbling wall.

She hobbled closer.

Was that – was that her dresser?

Clarke pawed at the fresh tears on her face, wincing at the stinging cold they drew to her cheeks. 

She slowly kneeled, biting her lip so she didn’t cry out in pain as she lowered herself to her knees. 

It _was_ her dresser. 

Somehow, it had fallen through the ceiling mostly in one piece. 

Her heart heaving into her mouth, she tugged open the splintered top drawer.

And there it was, somehow still intact. Pristine, even. 

The evening gown Clarke’s mother had had made for her the last time she’d been home. Christmas, in 1915. 

Clarke remembered trying not to scoff at such a silly gift. _Where would a girl on the front lines wear a dress like that?_ She remembered thinking. 

A fresh sob ripped from her throat.

It wasn’t fair.

_It wasn’t fair._

How did something as meaningless as a dress survive the blast in perfect condition, but her mother had been taken from her completely and absolutely, without a goodbye?

Clarke’s hands gripped the dress, twisting it mindlessly as she cried. 

She stared down at it, watching the pale pink and white beading glimmer and catch in the dim light. 

A helpless, exhausted calm trickled through her veins.

This was one of the last things her mother had given to her. This dress, the two rings now strung around her neck, and the mittens on her hands were all that she had left of her now.

Clarke folded the dress carefully, tucking it into her bag and drawing out her dirty, worn camp blanket. 

She threw it over herself and pillowed her head against the bag, curling in on herself in an attempt to preserve her body heat. 

She was reminded suddenly of the night before Vimy Ridge. She’d slept through worse than where she was right now.

And besides, where else would she go tonight?

The weariness that came from weeping dragged her quickly under. 

… 

As she faded back into consciousness, Clarke gradually became aware of how much the icy morning air ached as it moved in and out of her lungs.

She was freezing. Every muscle in her body screamed in protest with even the slightest shift. Limping across the city, leaning on hard, unforgiving crutches, and sleeping on a cold, hard floor would do that to a body. 

The healing wound in her right leg throbbed. 

For a moment, Clarke considered just staying where she was.

Laying there, silent, letting herself slip away. It was cold enough out that hypothermia would take her eventually. 

The weight of living felt unbearable after one had witnessed so much death. 

The ones she hadn’t been able to save. Thousands of them. The soldier she’d killed herself. The boys in her unit – yes, so many of them were boys. All so young. Watching them lose their lives, one by one. 

And now her mother.

What had it all been for, anyhow? There was still no end in sight. And the way Clarke saw it, everyone was losing, no matter who was named the victor in the papers. 

It would be so easy now, to let go. To disappear along with all of the other lives that had been lost to this godforsaken cause.

Clarke felt tears slip out of the corners of her eyes as she remained on the frozen ground.

Yes, it would be easy to leave all of this behind – save for one thing, really. One _person._

Bellamy.

He’d risked so much to keep her alive. He could have been shot on sight when he’d asked that officer in the camp to free them, and he likely knew it, too. 

The air stinging her lungs, sweeping in and out of her chest just now – it was because of him. She would have died in her own filth in that tiny, wintry little prisoner’s hut if not for him. 

Maybe – maybe she owed it to him to keep going. 

She reached up around her neck to grasp at the two wedding bands hanging there, embracing the bite of the cold metal against her palm. 

“Miss? _Miss!”_

Clarke turned her head to see a grizzled-looking man in a fireman’s coat hurrying over the rubble toward her. 

“Are you hurt, ma’am?”

“Not recently,” Clarke croaked, wincing at the break in her thin voice. “Just an old war wound. I’ve got my crutches.”

“War wound?” The bearded man frowned down at her. His face softened as he took in her nurse’s uniform. “Even if that’s an old wound, you might be hypothermic. Please let me take you to a warming station, if nothing else?”

“I suppose I have nowhere else to go,” Clarke agreed listlessly. 

“Grab your crutches, and I’ll grab you,” he said abruptly, tossing her bag over one of his shoulders. 

Startled, Clarke snatched up her crutches just before he swung her up into his arms. As he strode back toward what looked to be a small fire wagon, Clarke squinted in the morning light, studying his face. He had a strange, crescent-shaped scar over one of his eyes – likely an old burn from falling debris. He was handsome, in a rough sort of way. 

He settled Clarke onto the wooden bench next to him, tossed her bag in behind them, and set off. 

“So you were at the front, then?” The man asked, steering the pair of mules in a direction that seemed to be relatively less destroyed.

“Yes,” Clarke said distractedly, unable to take her eyes away from their surroundings as she saw them now for the first time in daylight. 

Buildings all around were decimated, the streets strewn with brick, splintered wood, and twisted iron. Small trails of smoke trickled up into the sky here and there as survivors huddled around little fires, trying to keep warm where there was no shelter to be had. 

The devastation went on for city blocks. Halifax as she knew it was gone, along with her last living parent. 

The tears in her eyes began to brim up again, and she turned her face away from the fireman, embarrassed. 

“I imagine you just got back, then,” he said quietly. “You look too shocked to have been here long.”

Clarke nodded.

“I only got here two days ago myself,” he continued, seeming unbothered by her lack of response. “Drove up here from Maine to lend a hand. They needed everyone who could come, from what it sounded like in the papers. I suppose they were right about that.” 

He coughed and reached back with one hand to turn up his coat collar against the frigid wind. “I’m guessing you didn’t find your family, then,” he murmured.

“I only have my mother. Had,” she corrected painfully. “The hospital told me she didn’t make it when I went to find her last night.” 

“I sure am sorry to hear that,” he said, and Clarke thought she detected genuine notes of sympathy in his voice. “I reckon you’ll go back to the front, then. If there’s nothing for you here.”

Clarke hadn’t even thought about that since she’d learned the fate of her mother. 

But now that she did, she couldn’t imagine any other option. 

She was going back to Bellamy. 

Bellamy, who she loved. 

There was nothing for her right now anywhere else besides the place where Bellamy was. 

“Yes, I suppose I will,” Clarke finally answered. 

“Well, I hope they let you.”

Clarke frowned. There was another thing that hadn’t occurred to her: the fact that she might not be allowed to choose where she went. Surely, they’d let her return to her original assignment, yes? 

Even if the program _had_ been discontinued. 

The lack of certainty battered at her brain like a loose set of marbles. It was too much. She couldn’t think about that just yet.

Right now, she just needed to take things one hour at a time. One breath at a time, even. 

“Here we are then, miss…”

“Griffin. Clarke Griffin. Thank you for the ride,” she said, clenching her fists until her knuckles whitened as she tried to climb down.

“Oh, hold up now, let me help you,” the fireman cautioned, leaping from his seat and running around to her side. “No need for you to hurt your _other_ leg. Then where would you be?”

He lifted her down effortlessly, as if he were used to hauling much heavier things. He probably was.

“I’ve been rude, I’m sorry. What’s your name, sir?” She asked, reluctantly leaning back over the crutches, which were beginning to rub the skin raw under her arms, despite her layers of clothing. 

“Roan,” he said with a crooked smile. “Just Roan.”

“Well, thank you again, Just Roan,” she teased half-heartedly. “I’m not sure I ever would have made it down here if not for your help.”

“Any time, Miss Clarke,” he grinned, climbing back up onto his seat. “Good day to you.” 

As she turned back to face the building he’d dropped her in front of, a nurse shuffled out toward her, clipboard in hand. 

“Oh,” she exclaimed as she drew closer. “You’re a nurse as well? Are you here to help?” The woman eyed Clarke’s crutches dubiously. 

“I’m really just here to get warm, and maybe find someone who can help me arrange some overseas transport,” Clarke answered apologetically.

Suddenly, she found herself wanting to leave the city as soon as she could recover. She was used to death and devastation over in France. She expected it there, even. 

But seeing her hometown ravaged just the same – it was too much. It was shredding the final remnants of hope she had left within her. 

She had to get out.

Her mother was here no longer, and without her, Clarke couldn’t stand the sight of what was around her. She’d stay until she could forgo the crutches, and help the emergency medical personnel for a few weeks, perhaps. She’d come back to the Seabright house when the war was over, maybe. 

But she had the feeling she wouldn’t want to look at Halifax again for a very, very long time. 

The other nurse squinted at Clarke’s armband. “You’re an army nurse then? Oh, dear. Here on leave? What a terrible thing to come home to, I’m afraid. Yes, please do come in. You’re probably as starved as you are cold.”

Clarke wasn’t hungry at all, actually, and hadn’t been for days. Weeks, even. But she knew she needed to eat something if she didn’t want to be a nuisance and faint every time she stood too quickly. 

She followed the nurse through the double doors. 

_**April, 1918** _

Bellamy could nearly feel his eyes sinking into their sockets as he shuffled wearily into his tiny single officer’s hut. Since the new year, the 1st Canadian division had been moved semi-permanently back into the reserve corps, but that didn’t mean they were sitting back on their heels. No, he and the men in his unit had been out until dawn helping to do emergency repair to a rail line, laying down tracks deep into the night and straight into morning. If that hadn’t been enough, he’d been called in to an officer’s strategy meeting this morning just after sunrise. 

He’d had to go to more and more of those since they’d promoted him to Major back in January. The promotion itself meant little by way of command: he was still primarily in charge of Company B, and no greater organized group. However, he’d gotten a bump in pay, increased participation in officer meetings, and a new uniform coat with one more braid on the sleeves than the last coat had. 

He didn’t mind the strategy meetings – really, he didn’t. But right now, he was exhausted to the bone. It was spring, but it still felt like winter, and the morning air was bitterly cold, the humidity in the fog rising over them making it all the more bone-chilling. He was rather looking forward to sleeping under his blanket pile until late afternoon. 

As he shrugged off his overcoat and hung it on the door hook, something small and pale on the foot of his bed caught his eye.

A letter. 

He held his breath as he quickly strode to it, snatching it up off the blanket. 

He tried to keep his heart rate down. It was probably just another letter from Octavia. He hadn’t heard from her since he’d gotten the letter that had been waiting for him in the trenches back in December, when he and Clarke had finally escaped the German POW camp. 

And Clarke. . .he’d never heard from Clarke.

He’d fully assumed that his letter to her had never made it. The address it was sent to almost certainly wasn’t there anymore. He didn’t know if Clarke had even _made_ it to Halifax.

His stomach churned at the thought. As it had every time he thought of her for the last four months. Feeling slightly ill seemed to be his permanent state of being nowadays. Nothing felt right without her.

Four months of not knowing if Clarke was dead or alive had worn harder on him with each passing day. It was like a wound that wouldn’t clot, slowly draining the life out of him. 

Because, if he was being realistic, each day of silence from her made it increasingly more likely that she hadn’t survived to tell him any news. 

Around February, he knew he should have stopped hoping. He ought to have given up. 

But he hadn’t been able to. He hadn’t _felt_ that she was gone, hadn’t felt that ache in the pit of his chest. Somehow, he felt that she had to still be out there, somewhere. That there was an explanation for the lack of word from her. 

He sat down on the edge of his bed, gripping the letter in his hands so tightly that he lost feeling in his already-cold fingertips. 

The address to him wasn’t in Octavia’s hand.

He flipped it over, his hands shaking. The return address read: _Clarke Griffin, Camp Hill Hospital, Halifax, Nova Scotia._

Heart pounding, he ripped it open as quickly as he could without destroying the sheets inside. 

_My Dearest Bellamy,_ it began. 

He could read no further. His vision was ruined by the tears welling rapidly in his eyes, burning them. 

She was alive. She was alive, and well enough to write. 

At least, she had been at the time she’d mailed this. 

Bellamy quickly glanced up at the date in the corner of the page: _December 18th, 1917._

He scoffed. She’d mailed this to him four months ago. Letters from Canada usually only took one to arrive, two at most. What had happened? Frustration battered in Bellamy’s chest. 

Breathing unsteadily, he read on. 

_My Dearest Bellamy,_

_I hope this letter reaches you well. To be perfectly honest, though I am, at present, safe from the horrors of the trenches, I cannot say that I feel any more at ease._

_My crossing was uneventful. The trouble began when I landed. I’m sure that by now you’ve heard of the explosion in the Halifax harbor. I myself didn’t hear of it until I was already halfway home. The devastation here, Bellamy – no photograph, no write-up will do it justice. The war was never on Canadian soil, but by the looks of this city, it may as well have been. All because of some stupid boat accident. Even after all that I have seen, it is still difficult to comprehend._

_Other than my own survival, I’m afraid I have little good news to impart. My mother’s and my flat was decimated – nearly nothing left of it. My mother, as well, is gone. The hospital told me of it the night I arrived. She died alone, on the street, walking to work._

_Since I’ve arrived, I think I’ve felt nothing but the ache of the bullet wound, chills, and grief. I am an orphan now, it seems. Just as you are. I can’t help but be so sorry that you have felt this pain, too, once. That you likely still feel it. It’s most dreadful, and I’m just. . .sorry._

_I hate to write this, but the unhappy news continues. As we both know, the program that sent me to you and our little Company B was cancelled quite some time ago. While they never recalled me from my position, it seems that they will no longer allow me to return to it. My pleading has fallen on deaf ears; they think I’m a lunatic for asking to return, and I’ve been reassigned to a hospital in London as soon as I’m done volunteering here in Halifax with the explosion victims._

_I do not know when I shall see you again, Bellamy, and for that, I grieve as well. The war has always felt bleak, but it feels even more so fighting it alone, and not by your side, and alongside all of our men. I miss you – so very, very much._

_I have not given up, though. I’m going to try and find a way back – maybe to a field hospital. I’ll go on the run if it comes to it. I don’t want to do this without you._

_I’m enclosing the address of the hospital I’m being sent to below. Please write to me, if you can. I have no one else left to look forward to hearing from, and your words would mean more than any others now._

_All my love,_

_Clarke._

Bellamy swiped away at the wetness on his cheeks. She was all right – at least, she was probably all right. The dried stains of teardrops near the bottom of the page suggested heartache, which in turn sent a pang through his own, but she was alive. She was in London now, for all he knew, at the address she’d scribbled at the bottom. He could write to her. 

The words she’d written to him had sent his heart into a melancholy constriction. She’d lost her last living parent, she was alone, and she’d been reassigned away from the unit.

He didn’t know when he would see her again. 

She said she’d try to come back, but she’d written that in December. It was April now, and she’d likely been in London since January. 

Knowing that they were parted by a sea gnawed painfully at him, but it was better than not knowing anything at all. 

The relief that was washing over him exhausted him even further, tiring him in the way that one was tired at the end of a very hard, very long run. 

His eyes were already drooping. Maybe he would sleep soundly now, knowing that she was alive. He hadn’t been able to since the morning she’d left. 

He’d write her back this afternoon when he woke up. He cursed the army’s mail service, anxious at the thought that she’d likely been wondering why he wasn’t writing her back for months now.

He clutched the letter in his hand as he lay down, bundling into his blanket.

As he finally sank into sleep, his mind swam in circles around the last words she’d written: _all my love._

All her love _._

The longstanding ache in his chest began to ease into peace. 

…

“You’re out for the night, Griffin. Go to the mess hall and feed yourself.” 

When Clarke turned to look at the head nurse who’d barked at her, the woman had already walked away, soiled dressings in hand. 

Clarke shrugged and headed for the ward’s exit, untying her apron as she went. She’d been on her feet for nearly ten hours now, and the part of her leg where the bullet wound had been started aching any time she walked around for longer than four. She grimaced, but took care to hide her limp.

If she was ever going to get back to any field hospital across the channel, she could never let them see her limp.

As she slung her apron over her arm and headed down to the cafeteria, she began to wonder if the transfer she’d requested would ever be granted. She’d asked for it back in February, only three weeks after she’d first arrived at her assignment here at St. Thomas’s in London after her nearly month-long stay in Halifax helping the explosion victims, and she’d been told no – they needed someone with her experience here in this hospital. She’d asked again at the end of March, and had received only a noncommittal “we’ll consider it” in response. 

Every day that she passed trapped in this dark, stuffy labyrinth of a hospital made her feel more and more like she was suffocating. 

The nurses around her, while curious about her years in the trenches, looked at her like she’d gone mad whenever they learned that she was trying to go back. 

She could understand their reactions. It likely _was_ mad to try and go back. But her work there, and the people there – mostly Bellamy, if she was honest with herself – felt like all she had left in this world. Felt like all that she knew. 

Her parents were gone. Halifax was gone. Her youth, and any plans she’d made for her life prior to the start of the war – all gone. Though she hadn’t thought of herself as one at the time, she’d really only been a child when she’d boarded that doomed ocean liner with Bellamy on her way to France. She’d been eighteen then, and they’d expected the war to be over by Christmas of that year. 

In truth, Clarke didn’t know what came after this for her. She had a broken-down old house by the sea to go back to, and nothing else. 

So for now, she was reaching out for what she knew, and what she felt sure that she could do to help those suffering through this godforsaken war. 

Clarke trudged up to the mostly deserted cafeteria counter. 

“What’s hot today, Maude?” She asked the red-cheeked serving woman with salt-and-pepper hair behind the counter. 

“Fish hand pies, missy. Lucky we got some flour in this week.” The woman handed her a hot, folded pastry pocket, wrapped in thin paper and steaming from two slashes cut into its top. 

“A real treat,” Clarke called back, swinging by the side table to grab a tin cup of water and settling down at a wobbly, but otherwise empty bench. 

They weren’t popular with everyone, but Clarke didn’t mind the fish pies. She’d grown up on fresh sea-catch, and she was thankful to get any kind of meat at all – even in a city the size of London, they still usually got meat a couple times a week now. It was better than trench fare eaten crouched in the dirt, to be sure, but it was nothing like the meals one would have had in the city four years ago. 

As she devoured her hand pie, regretting her impatience as she felt the filling sear her tongue mercilessly, she wondered what Bellamy was having for dinner. If he’d even gotten dinner. 

She didn’t let herself wonder if he was even still alive. He _had_ to be. She wouldn’t allow the alternative. It was unfathomable. It would break her mind. 

But she’d written to him four months ago now, and she’d included the address to St. Thomas’s. Mail to London usually didn’t take terribly long to arrive from the front, nor did it often get lost, unlike that to more unlucky empire counterparts in Australia and New Zealand. 

There were plenty of potential reasons he hadn’t responded, of course, though Clarke didn’t particularly like to ponder most of the possibilities. There was a chance, naturally, that his letter had gotten lost. No one’s fault but the postal service. But all of the other options. . .they were much more painful to contemplate.

Maybe he’d been captured again. Maybe he’d been wounded badly, and unable to speak or write as he recovered. 

Maybe he just didn’t want to write her back. 

Whatever the reason, it had been four months, and she’d heard nothing. 

She thought, at first, that eventually she’d get used to his absence. That it would settle over her and grow quiet, becoming a part of her just as his presence had.

But she’d been away from him since December, and the Bellamy-shaped ache in her chest had yet to subside. 

Acceptance of his absence had not become a part of her; the pain of it had. 

With a full belly, a sore heart, and a scalded tongue, Clarke headed for the staircase, mentally bracing herself for the five-story climb. 

There was a lift, yes. But it was slow and small, and it was for patients. She felt bad any time she took up any space within it. So, even though it made the muscles behind the shiny pink scar on her leg burn in protest, she climbed the stairs each night, quickly hiding her grimace any time she passed someone she knew on her way up to the nurses’ dormitories. 

Once in her tiny room with the double beds squeezed into it, Clarke sank onto the foot of her mattress, gazing tiredly out of the small dormer window they had that faced across the river. 

It was a pretty view, she had to admit. The sun was nearly set, glinting gold off the sway of the Thames. Directly across from them, the towers of the Palace of Westminster and the Abbey stretched toward the sky, shaded a warm yellow-orange under the fading sun. The clock face on Big Ben was unlit, making it almost impossible to read. Clarke had asked about it, once, when she’d first arrived. Apparently it had been kept dark at night for almost two years now, so as not to lend itself as a target for any passing German zeppelins. 

“Christ alive,” an exasperated voice came from Clarke’s right. “I can’t _wait_ to have a bath.”

Clarke turned and smiled weakly at the dark-haired girl who had just strolled into the room, huffing as she folded her arms over her wrinkled bodice. “Rough go of it today?” Clarke said sympathetically. 

“I just spent the last four hours assisting in a single surgery,” Clarke’s roommate, Raven, replied. “Trying to save a man’s leg near the top of his femur. Messy, messy work, and we didn’t even succeed,” she said unhappily. 

Raven, who Clarke had been assigned to bunk with when she’d first arrived near the end of January, was a VAD nurse who’d been assigned a year or so ago to be a surgeon’s assistant, thanks to her steady hands and knack for precision. Clarke got a feeling that she liked the work, and vastly preferred it to something like reading to convalescing soldiers or taking their temperature, but it was a stressful job all the same. 

“I’m sorry,” Clarke said sympathetically. “Saving limbs is a tricky business. I’m sure you did all you could.”

Raven nodded absently. “I meant it about that bath, though,” she frowned, moving across the room to gather up her things to be taken down to the wash rooms. 

She straightened up suddenly, so fast that she nearly made Clarke jump. “Oh, I nearly forgot.”

“Hm?”

“I picked this up for you earlier. I stopped at the window to see if there were any letters from my friend Luna, and the postmaster asked if I’d take this to you, since you never seem to stop by.”

Raven dropped a letter into her lap before returning to her trunk to search for her soap bar.

Clarke’s heart jolted to a stop.

She’d stopped going to the post office a month ago – it seemed as if there was no use, given that Bellamy hadn’t replied, and she really didn’t know anyone else who could be mailing her anything.

Which meant that this letter now resting in her lap. . .it could only be from one person. 

She bit down hard on her lip to keep herself from losing her breath. 

Clarke flipped the letter over in her hand, searching for a return address.

 _War Department: Care of Bellamy Blake, 1st Canadian Division_.

“I’ll be back later,” Raven called over her shoulder as she swept out the door. Clarke barely heard it shut. 

She ripped the envelope open, her hands trembling as she held up Bellamy’s scrawl in the dying light. 

The date at the top was only two weeks ago. This letter hadn’t been lost. 

Clarke’s heart leapt into her throat as she devoured his words. 

_Dear Clarke,_

_Words cannot say how relieved I was to get your letter this morning. What took it so long to arrive, I have no idea, but know that I did not neglect you on purpose – there must have been one hell of a mix-up with the post. I actually did write you back in December, to your flat in Halifax, but I can be certain now that it never reached you, given that your flat was gone before the letter had time to arrive._

_To finally hear that you’re alive, that you’re all right. . .it overwhelms me. I assume that you’re in London now, but I hope that wherever you are, you’re safe, and happy with the work that you’ve been given._

_Clarke, I’m so sorry about your mother. You deserve more than the lot that the world has given you in life, and I hope that no more heartbreak has befallen you since you wrote me._

_I won’t say that all is fine here, because it’s still a bloody war, but you’ll be pleased to hear that the Canadian corps have primarily been held back as reserve troops throughout the winter and spring – I haven’t seen the front lines for ages. I can’t say that I particularly enjoy rebuilding railroads, but it certainly beats being shot at – or shooting. I’m sure we won’t stay in the reserves forever, but it’s nice to have been relatively safe for awhile, even if we are all still cold and still hungry._

_I hope that, wherever you are, you are warm and well-looked-after. You deserve it, after all of the years you’ve spent down here with us. I cannot tell you how much I miss you, Clarke, but I hope that you will stay away from this place – away from all the fighting. Getting you out of here in December was a close shave, and I couldn’t bear for something like that to happen again. I couldn’t live with it. I know that there is a lot of good that you can do, even if the hospital is in London and not in the fields of France. All of this has to be over someday, and I hope that when the day comes, we might find each other again._

_Until then, I will be waiting for you, thinking of the next moment that we will be together. I’ve spent so much of this war beside you that I feel I am uncentered and off-kilter now that I am alone._

_Yours, always,_

_Bellamy._

Clarke’s breath escaped her in a whooshing sob. 

He was all right, and he missed her. The letters had just gotten lost. 

She cradled the letter to her chest, leaning back into her pillow. 

Her heart felt as if it was being yanked in many different directions. 

She was nearly sick with relief that he was all right, and that he was thinking of her, too.

But he said he hoped she’d stay away. To keep far from the front. 

Though in her mind, she knew those words were certainly written out of care for her, out of thoughtfulness for her safety and well-being, in her heart, they held all the bitter sting of rejection.

Selfishly, perhaps, she’d wanted him to ask her to come back. To take her place by his side again, until the end of this. 

And he hadn’t. He _hoped_ that she wouldn’t. 

She knew it wasn’t logical, but fear began to nestle within her – fear that she cared far more for him than he did for her.

And after everything she’d seen, everything she’d lost – she couldn’t bear that. 

All of a sudden, the fight within her to get a transfer back to France – or Belgium, or wherever Company B was now – began to dissipate, like wind leaving a ship’s sails. 

It felt useless to fight for a place somewhere where she wasn’t wanted. 

Clarke’s heart, which had risen like a kite in the breeze at the sight of Bellamy’s writing, now felt like a sinking river stone in her chest. 

She dropped the letter into her little nightstand drawer, tucked her face into her pillow, and closed her eyes. 

_**July, 1918** _

Bellamy wiped the sweat from his brow with his already-filthy shirtsleeve. The heat of the day had become relentless over the past few weeks, and he hated that the drills they’d been running the division through lately were usually under the peak of the midday sun. It almost made him look forward to night duties, where fixing barbed wire and repairing trenches in the dark felt like a relief by comparison. 

Bellamy’s time in the reserves was coming rapidly to an end. A major offensive was set to begin next month, and the Canadian corps would be right at the forefront, thanks to their previous success record. In preparation, Company B had actually been dissolved, given how small it had grown in recent months, and Bellamy’s remaining men had been poured into Company A over in the 4th Canadian instead. The previous major in charge of the unit had unfortunately passed away from complications from a leg injury, and Bellamy had been appointed to take over, as well as somehow bind together these two different bands of men. It had been going all right, so far, but the true test would be their performance together during an actual battle. 

As he followed his men back to the trenches for whatever slop it was they’d be fed for dinner before they were sent to do repair work, he wondered if the letter he’d just written to Clarke had arrived to her up at the hospital in London yet.

He wondered if she was even still there. If she was, and she’d gotten his letter back in April, she’d never written him back. 

The longer the silence from her extended before him, the more restless he'd grown. He couldn’t remember every single line that he’d written, but he was terribly afraid that he’d said something wrong, offended her somehow. 

Then a few nights ago, as he lay sleeplessly in bed, thinking of her, as he always did, it dawned on him.

She didn’t know how he felt. 

When writing the letter to London, he’d stupidly forgotten to take into account that everything he’d said to her in the first letter, the lost one to Halifax, had never actually reached her. The letter he’d poured his feelings into – _he_ knew he’d written it, but she still didn’t.

He’d written another letter so quickly that he’d almost torn the pages on accident. Mailed it first thing the next morning. 

Bellamy had known that he’d loved her for so long that it had become a part of him, something that he didn’t think to consider that someone else might not know. That _Clarke_ might not know. Maybe she hadn’t heard him call after her that morning when the hospital truck had taken her. How he’d screamed that he loved her. And he _knew_ she hadn’t gotten his first letter. 

When he’d written to her before, he’d told her that he hoped she’d stay away from the danger of the front lines. And maybe he _thought_ that he actually felt that way. He really didn’t want to ever see her near the front of a battlefield again, and he was sure that he would quite literally lose his mind if she was ever captured like she had been last winter. But really, he couldn’t stand not having her here. And now he wondered that if his words, combined with what he _hadn’t_ said, had given her the impression that he didn’t care about her, didn’t want her around. 

Maybe the key to breaking the silence that lay between them now was simply telling her that he’d been wrong. 

Now, as he stood in line for his dinner ration, wondering if Clarke had read the letter yet, he reached up to his collar, twisting the chain that his mother’s ring had hung on ever since Octavia had given it to him all those Christmases ago. 

He cherished that ring, and the only way he would ever part with it is if it went onto the third finger of Clarke Griffin’s left hand. 

He’d thought of it there many times. Dreamed of it, even. For months now. 

He hoped that, if he ever saw her again, he’d be brave enough to ask her the question.

That she’d say yes. 

There was nothing in the world that he wanted more than that now. 

Clarke’s hand in his hand, never to be parted, standing on the porch of a house by the sea. 

Bellamy dropped the ring back inside the collar of his shirt, giving himself a mental jolt. He was getting far too ahead of himself. 

… 

“Letter for you, miss,” the post office clerk called to her as she walked past his window.

Clarke startled. She wasn’t expecting any letters. . .unless?

She’d never written back to Bellamy. She felt a little ashamed of it, if she was honest with herself. Yes, she desperately wanted to talk to him, to find out how he was, but she’d already been in such a low place when she’d received his letter, and it had hurt her. 

She’d felt so alone in the world – she still did, really – and she wanted to be wanted. She knew he cared about her in some way or another, but his letter had pretty clearly told her to stay away from the front. Which, really, meant away from wherever he was. 

She should have written back, but it seemed to be a blow that she couldn’t quite recover from.

Clarke ducked into a secluded corner by a window, holding the letter up to the dim natural light. A storm seemed to be rolling in, and the sky was an ominous wash of pale and darker shades of gray. 

She flipped the letter over. 

No return address this time. 

She suddenly felt a bit ill as she slid her finger across the top, tearing it open. 

As she scrambled to unfold the single sheet of paper inside, she recognized the handwriting, and her stomach squirmed with guilt. No matter how much her feelings had been hurt, that was her own problem, and Bellamy was her friend. Her dearest friend, even. She’d let his letter go unanswered for over three months.

She should have responded. 

She swallowed thickly as she began to read.

_Dear Clarke,_

_I’m sorry if I didn’t say the right thing in my last letter. Finding the right words is hard sometimes. But recently, I realized that I’d made the most grievous of mistakes in what I’d written: I’d ended the letter with something that wasn’t true._

_In my letter, I’d said that I hoped you would stay away from the front for the rest of the war. And while I never want to see you in danger, Clarke, I’ve realized that what I wrote was a lie. To be truthful, I’m more selfish than that. I don’t hope that you stay away. I want you here so much that I can hardly think about anything else._

_I need you here, Clarke. But know that I want you here, too._

_You have to choose your own path, and of course I want you safe. But I find myself wishing more than anything that, whatever path you choose, it will cross mine._

_I suppose what I’m saying is – if you want to – come back when you can. I hope you do._

_Love,_

_Bellamy._

Clarke’s hands trembled as she read and re-read the letter. 

It had all been a mix-up. A miscommunication full of half-truths.

He _did_ want her to come back. 

Really, they wanted the same thing. 

Though she was exhausted from her early-morning shift, Clarke suddenly found herself full of inexplicably boundless energy. She felt the need to sprint, to scream, to climb the walls.

Instead, she walked briskly to the nurse assignment office.

“Ah, Miss Griffin. Are you back to badger us about your transfer request? If so, you’re finally in luck,” the overseer at the front desk gave her a grim nod. 

Clarke’s heart pattered in her chest like a cage full of butterflies. 

“We’ve gotten word that the allied forces in northern France are planning a major offensive for August, and likely the months following. They’re in need of more nurses and medics by the dozens, so today’s your lucky day. Well, a few days from now, really. The ship sails from the Thames at the end of the week. That is, if you’re still interested. Do you really want to leave London for a field hospital in France, Miss Griffin?”

Clarke nodded without hesitation. “I do, sir. Very much so.” 

The man raised his brows at her. “Very well then. I’ll have your papers sent up to your room. You ought to start preparing yourself, I suppose, though I can’t imagine you’ll have much to pack.”

“Thank you,” Clarke said genuinely. “Thank you so very much.”

The man in the office stared after her quizzically as she rushed out and back toward the stairs.

She was going back. 

Back to Bellamy. 

Bellamy, who wanted her there with him.

She was so overwhelmed with the thrill of it that she nearly laughed. 

She really had gone mad. After two and a half years at the front, how on earth could a girl be excited to go back?

The laugh under her breath indeed sounded a bit wild as she bounded up the stairwell, ignoring the old familiar burn in her lower leg. 

… 

“Clarke, you almost died last time you were out there. Please, _please_ be careful, all right?” Raven’s hand squeezed her shoulder. “And write to me when you can.”

“I will,” Clarke promised, pulling her into a hug. She and Raven didn’t always see eye to eye on everything, but in the six months that they’d roomed together, they’d become friends. It had been a long time since Clarke had had the luxury of female friendship, given how isolated she’d been from other women while she was in the trenches, and she would miss having Raven around.

“Don’t forget to be extra careful looking out for Spanish Flu symptoms,” Raven reminded her. “No offense, Clarke, but I don’t think even you could survive typhus _and_ influenza in the span of half a year.”

“I’ll keep an eye out, don’t worry.” Clarke picked up her bag and headed for the door. “Take care of yourself, Raven,” she smiled back wistfully.

“You too,” Raven said with a feeble, sad sort of wave. 

And before Clarke knew it, she was on a ship again, sailing down the river and into the night. Toward the choppy waves of the channel, just as she had with Bellamy, over three years ago now. The two of them had still been a bit in shock in the aftermath of the _Lusitania,_ then. 

If only they’d known how much worse things would be to come. 

Perhaps it was better that they hadn’t known. If they had, they might not have had the spirit to go on.

Clarke glanced up at the clock that hung on the wall opposite the bench she’d settled on. There were still hours left on the ship, and once she landed, it would be several more hours from Calais down to the field hospital that was being raised preemptively near Amiens. 

When she’d first gotten her reassignment, she hadn’t reckoned with the idea that she’d have hours upon hours alone to face her decision, to be forced to stare her fate down like one would a bear across the forest. 

She was going back to the front. Back to immediate proximity to battle, where the wounded and dead would pour in not only in much greater numbers, but with much more urgency than they had by the time they’d reached a London hospital. 

Yes, she’d done this before. But she hadn’t seen the front lines since last November, and it was the beginning of August now. 

She shook herself. She wasn’t going back to the front lines – she wasn’t even going back to the trenches. She was going back to a _field hospital_ to work as a nurse. Her days as a trench medic were over.

Weren’t they?

Would she go back down into the dirt, if they asked her to?

She knew they wouldn’t ask. But she also knew that, if they did, she would say yes. 

After all this time, Clarke couldn’t help but feel that that was where she truly belonged in all this. 

In the corridors of the trenches. On the field, kneeling over fallen men. In the dugouts, tucked safely into Bellamy’s waiting arms. 

The realization frightened her. 

She was _frightened_ of the very place she knew she belonged. 

But the sense of purpose, of truth in it, trumped the fear that it sent coursing through her. 

Clarke closed her eyes, leaning back against the cold, polished wood. 

It didn’t matter, anyhow. She was going to a field hospital. Not the trenches. She wasn’t allowed back in the trenches. 

Somehow, she’d have to find Bellamy. She hoped he didn’t find her first, by way of being carried in to her on a stretcher. 

She hadn’t written back to him. She knew she could travel faster than a letter would have, at this point. No, she hadn’t given him warning. The answer to his letter would come in person.

She just hoped she could find him. It would be hard now that the Canadian corps were being pulled out of reserve and crowded up to the front of the line. 

She _would_ find him. She would. Even if she had to break the rules. 

Clarke leaned her head against the cool glass, gazing out into the inky night and trying to quell the anxiety swelling in her chest. 

She would find him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~it's always darkest before the dawn~
> 
> This chapter ended up being super long, so I had to split it into two chapters. I really wanted to keep it all in one, but a 45K chapter seemed like Too Much, so the next bit will be up next week, universe willing. Hope you guys enjoyed (suffering)!


	5. Of Poppies and Promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Miller, who was about ten yards ahead of Bellamy, had stopped dead in his tracks, shading his eyes.  
> 'Oh, my god,' he croaked in disbelief.  
> 'What is it?' Bellamy squinted.  
> The figure drew closer.  
> Then Bellamy saw.  
> His heart leapt into his throat."
> 
> ///
> 
> Bellamy and Clarke reach out for peace as the sun begins to set over the great war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please note the rating change for this chapter as it did for a reason!

* * *

_in which our heroes return to the battlefield once more, and the end begins._

* * *

_**August, 1918** _

“It’s _imperative_ that we take the railway junction at Amiens. Is that understood?” The newest colonel in charge, Shumway, articulated, his voice a harsh staccato. His black hair shone almost blue in the light, and his expression was cold. 

Colonel Kane had unfortunately succumbed to influenza a few months ago, and Bellamy couldn’t stand his replacement. Shumway seemed determined for victory – Bellamy could understand that. But Shumway’s strategies seemed to care little about preserving any life, whether that be his own men, or even civilians. Bellamy would do everything he could to keep his own unit safe, but for the first time in a while, the Canadians were being shoved right up against the front of the line, expecting to pave the way alongside the Anzac soldiers to set the stage for an offensive from the rest of the Allied forces. 

“Major Blake,” Colonel Shumway said suddenly. Bellamy’s spine stiffened. 

“Yes, sir?”

“How are the new recruits coming along? Will they be prepared, or must we write them off as cannon fodder?” Shumway raised an eyebrow in disdain.

It took everything in Bellamy to control the muscles in his jaw, to keep them from contorting into a scowl. “They’ll be ready, sir. You can count on it.”

At least it was mostly the truth. One of the new men in the unit – Gabriel, he’d asked everyone to call him – seemed to show real promise, and Bellamy actually thought that he was being wasted as a private. If he came out on the other side of Amiens, Bellamy planned to recommend him to be promoted to sergeant instead. 

But then there were other newcomers like Riley – freshly turned eighteen, incredibly green, and terrified. Bellamy couldn’t blame him or the others like him at all. They’d had to sit through years of war, watching, listening, learning of all the horrors that came with it, and knowing that their time would come eventually to follow in those footsteps. 

“You’re all dismissed, then. Get back to work,” Shumway barked, waving them off. 

As Bellamy walked back to his dugout, he had to force himself from stopping to ask one of the postal delivery boys if any new letters had come for him. There wasn’t even a guarantee that Clarke had gotten the one he’d written to her yet, much less had time to reply – if she’d felt so inclined. 

Instead, he munched on his disgustingly stale dinner crackers as he re-read Octavia’s latest letter to him. 

Apparently she’d met someone in New York – a young man by the name of Levitt – who absolutely adored her, head-over-heels. The tone of her words about him was mocking, as if he was a puppy trailing at her heels, but Bellamy couldn’t help but sense a bit of pleasure, maybe even hope, in her words. She hadn’t even breathed a mention of any other man since she’d lost Lincoln to the war, and, protective as he may be, Bellamy didn’t want that kind of perpetual solitude for her. 

She deserved to be happy. Bellamy just hoped that, if she chose Levitt, he’d be good enough for her – and able to hold his own. Bellamy knew that his sister could be a formidable thing to behold sometimes. 

A knock against his wall sounded, and Bellamy saw Miller’s head pop inside the curtain. 

“Can you come give us a hand? Riley’s gotten himself stuck in some barbed wire. He’s going to tear his hands up if we don’t get him out soon.”

Bellamy shook his head. “Right behind you,” he called. 

For a fraction of a second, he still felt the old urge to motion to Clarke, to call her along. She’d always gone out for things like this, medic bag in hand as she bounced from one foot to the other in nervous anticipation. She’d been gone for over half a year now, but the habits that he’d developed surrounding her had proven nearly impossible to shake. 

Tiredly, he stepped out onto the duckboards, sending someone to find Jackson instead. 

… 

According to the hodgepodge of rumors that had been flying around her for the last few days, Clarke had determined that the battle was likely to commence in less than 72 hours. 

Less than three days, and she hadn’t found hide nor hair of Bellamy. 

Of anyone she knew, really. 

It wasn’t like she’d had much time to look around – she was strictly not allowed to step down into any part of the trenches, so all she could do was keep an eye on the hospital tent and the officers’ cabins, though even those were likely useless to her, since she’d heard that the Canadian corps were being sent to the very front of the line. 

She woke up every morning with a chest tight with anxiety, and went to bed feeling the exact same. 

It was strange sleeping in a cabin bunk and not in a dugout. While she’d enjoyed the cabins from time to time when her unit had been cycled back to a few days’ rest every month, she’d spent the vast majority of her time at war sleeping in dark, cave-like dugouts. 

Clarke supposed she should appreciate not having to live underground, but sleeping in a cabin across from two other strangers, nurses she didn’t know – it didn’t feel right at all.

After the first day back, she realized that if she wanted to find Bellamy, she was going to have to rely on word of mouth. Whenever new soldiers came in, troubled with whatever ailed soldiers pre-battle – trench foot, typhus, dysentery, raid injuries, and the like – she’d asked them about her unit. To her increasing alarm, she’d come to understand that it no longer existed.

“There is no Captain Blake’s Company B in the 1st Division, ma’am,” one soldier had feebly told her from his makeshift hospital bed. 

What had happened in the time she’d been gone? Bellamy hadn’t mentioned anything in his letter. 

She’d started asking about him directly instead. 

“I haven’t heard of any Captain Blake in the 1st Division,” a sergeant with a ghastly burn from one of the broken camp stoves had said through a grimace. “Sorry, miss.”

_Where did he go? And why had no one heard of him?_

Clarke began asking about Miller, who’d been with the unit since the beginning. When she hadn’t found any word of him, either, a slow panic had begun to settle into her like a chill on a rainy day. 

She thought of sending messages, but how would she even know where to send them if she didn’t know where Bellamy and his men had gone? Besides, she doubted anyone would deliver it for her. It wouldn’t be official communication, and she highly doubted that “asking around about the soldier I’m in love with” was an excuse that would settle well with anyone. 

She didn’t know where Bellamy was, and nurses weren’t allowed anywhere near the trenches. 

And the battle was set to begin in less than three days.

A whisper of a plan hatched in Clarke’s brain, growing louder and louder as each hour passed. It was absolutely absurd, highly unlikely to succeed, and possibly deadly.

But it was the only option she could think of that might actually work.

Quietly, discreetly, she began gathering discarded items each day, as sneakily as she could. A pair of breeches. A private’s uniform coat. Some wide cloth bandages that the hospital didn’t seem likely to miss at the moment. A slightly dented, but otherwise intact cap.

She really ought to have a helmet, but there didn’t seem to be any to spare. 

If no one could tell her where Bellamy was, she was just going to have to go and find him herself. 

… 

Bellamy rose from the edge of his bed and began to shove his feet into his worn, dusty boots. 

It was 3:30 in the morning, and he hadn’t slept a wink. Hadn’t even tried. 

Just ten hours ago, he’d been told that the offensive had been moved up to begin a day early, and that they would start before sunrise.

It was time to move out. 

He snuffed his lantern and ducked out into the throng. 

There was still no sign of the rising sun – there wouldn’t be for at least another three hours. Men shuffled past holding lanterns aloft, gazing anxiously up and down the alleys. It was hard to find anyone when it was still so dark out. 

Bellamy needed to find his men. The unit needed to form up.

They still had miles to march in the dark before the fighting would begin. 

“Bellamy, down here!”

Bellamy’s shoulders sagged with relief at the sound of Miller’s voice. After a few seconds, he found his face in the crowd, followed by Gabriel, Riley, and what appeared to be the rest of the men. He pushed through the crowd toward them.

Was the churning in his stomach because he was hungry and anxious, or because he dreaded going back into battle after all these months?

“All right, all right, fall in and gather up close,” Bellamy called to them, forcing more energy into his voice than he actually felt, leading them up the mud-formed steps and out of the trenches to join the other units lining up. “I know some of us don’t know each other very well yet, and that all of us haven’t seen any front-lines action since last year for the most part. Some of you new men haven’t seen the front lines at all yet. And that’s why I’m telling you, as I always do, that you have to look out for each other. We all do. Watch each others’ backs, and stay with the unit as much as possible. Men, if you see one of your comrades has fallen, stay with him. Call for help. If you see any enemy personnel charging them, yell out a warning. None of us can do this alone. This always works better when the unit works as a _unit_ , all right? No good will come of the ‘every man for himself’ attitude, so I don’t want to see any of that.

“And, as always, I’ll be right there beside you. Follow me, and I’ll do everything I can to get us out of there alive. Understood?” Bellamy cocked his head at the group that had gathered around him. 

The voices of a hundred other men replied roughly, but decidedly in the affirmative.

Bellamy clapped his hands together, sending tingles smarting through them in the chill of the early, early morning. 

“All right, then. Once more unto the breach.” Bellamy nodded for them to fall in behind the company forming up in front of them.

Gabriel sidled up next to him, one eyebrow raised over a tired, but wary expression.

“Did you just quote Shakespeare as part of your words of motivation on the day of battle?” He asked, an amused smile quirking at the corner of his mouth.

“I, uh, I suppose I did,” Bellamy admitted, ruffling the hair on the back of his head. “It was the first thing that came to mind, and I thought no one would catch it.” 

“ _Henry V_ was one of my favorite plays in school,” Gabriel replied, his voice teasing but friendly. 

Bellamy grinned in spite of everything. “Mine as well.” He clapped Gabriel’s back. “Listen, you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Help me look out for the green ones, would you?”

Both of them looked back at Riley, who was jiggling his foot nervously and chewing on his bottom lip. A pang shot through Bellamy’s chest as the tic reminded him of Clarke, of the way she would bite at her sweet, downturned mouth when she was upset or anxious. 

“Of course,” Gabriel nodded, and Bellamy could tell that he meant it. Gabriel stepped back, taking his place in line next to Miller.

Bellamy’s stomach continued to churn as his thoughts remained on Clarke. What would his fate be, at the end of today? Would he ever get to see her again? To tell her he loved her face to face?

And his sister. Octavia was thousands of miles away. What if that Christmas back in 1915 had been the last time he’d ever see her, and he didn’t know it yet?

He tried to take a deep, calming breath. Bellamy had always felt jitters, felt dread before marching headfirst into a battle, but somehow, this time felt bigger. Felt worse.

Maybe it was because it was the first time he’d seen action in over half a year. 

Maybe it was because this was his fourth year of fighting, and it was finally shredding him into pieces he didn’t know how to put back together.

But also, maybe it was because this was the first time that he knew Clarke Griffin would be nowhere to be found during a major battle since the day that they’d met. 

He knew it was awful of him – selfish and thoughtless – but he wished that she was nearby, strong and capable and more compassionate toward the suffering of others than anyone he’d ever met. 

It was rare that anything good came out of war, but everything always seemed so much better when she was around.

“Move out!”

Shumway’s sharp voice jolted him out of his thoughts and back into his corporeal surroundings: the still-dark sky, the crowd of men’s bodies, the clatter of rifles being shouldered.

Bellamy reached up to touch the small bump under his coat where he knew his mother’s ring lay.

Everyone began to march. 

… 

Clarke reached up to finish pinning her hair into a tight bun, making sure that none of her long, golden strands would fall out from under her cap in case she had to run. 

As she secured the last pin, she couldn’t help but wince at the way the binding around her chest pressed her down uncomfortably as she moved her arms around. She knew that her breasts were too large to hide easily under a soldier’s uniform, so she’d wrapped them up, winding a swath of linen around herself until they were nearly flat against her chest. At least, flat enough to easily disguise under the bulk of a private’s coat. 

Clarke’s eyes followed the flicker of the lantern next to her, grateful that her bunkmates were heavy sleepers. The sun wouldn’t be up for a few hours yet, and Clarke knew that slipping out amongst the marching soldiers in the dark would give her an advantage. She wasn’t sure if she could pass as a man or not, as she had no mirror to look in, so right now, low visibility was her safest bet. 

She’d almost missed her chance. She’d caught word last night in the field hospital tent that the battle was set to begin a day earlier than expected. 

She had to be ready now. She wasn’t willing to wait and see if she could find Bellamy when – or if – he returned from the fight. She knew she’d be too busy tending to the wounded then to do much looking, anyway.

Clarke felt a pang of guilt as she remembered the duties she’d be shirking today. She knew that by midmorning, the hospital was likely to be quite busy, and she would be nowhere to be found. 

But she couldn’t live with just hanging back and waiting. She’d been doing it for far too long, and the back of the line wasn’t where she felt she was truly meant to be. She’d brought along her medic bag, hoping it would lessen the likelihood of someone trying to stop her or interfere with her mission, and she promised herself that she’d stop to help the wounded as much as she could while she looked. 

She extinguished her lantern and ducked outside, following the sound of gathering soldiers in the dark. 

As she walked along, Clarke couldn’t help but enjoy the newfound freedom about her legs. She’d worn long skirts ever since she’d been deemed “old enough” to as a girl, and the range of movement she was currently experiencing in trousers was a revelation. Clarke had heard of some women wearing trousers as the war had worn on in order to better suit the work they’d taken up in the absence of the men, and she hoped that it was a trend that would catch on permanently. She couldn’t help but imagine climbing a tree in what she was currently wearing, or how easy it would be to ride a bicycle. 

The clatter of a stack of rifles nearby startled her back to reality. Ought she to grab one?

She decided against it. While she’d never gotten back the trench knife that Bellamy had given to her after the Germans from the prison camp had disarmed her, she didn’t feel confident enough in her ability to figure out how to handle a rifle between now and the time she reached the front. It would just slow her down. 

It seemed that she was going in unarmed. 

Though Clarke appreciated the darkness for the cover that it provided her, she found herself growing frustrated at how much it was currently limiting her vision. She couldn’t _look_ for Bellamy right now; she was going to have to listen for him instead.

She didn’t even know where to begin. Clearly, her Company B was no more, and no one she’d yet encountered had heard of a Captain Blake. 

It seemed most likely that he’d been transferred – but where to? The Canadian corps were made up of a few _hundred thousand_ men. There were four divisions, and each division had at least a dozen battalions. 

The numbers alone made her dizzy. 

She had a long road ahead. 

… 

“Get _down!”_

Bellamy screamed at his men over the din of artillery as he saw a cannon sailing in an arc toward them. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw them scatter as he himself dove for cover, clutching his rifle to him. 

They’d been pushing forward for hours, and the sun was finally coming up, painting the smoky haze of the battle in a blazing shade of golden-orange. 

The enemy was dropping like flies. The Canadians, well rested after all these months, pummeled forward with ferocity alongside the Anzacs, and after just a few hours from the start of the attack, they’d gained over two miles of ground and pushed through the breach, hammering the enemy forces further and further back. Bellamy could hear the heavy, whirring roll of the tanks that flanked the division, and a few miles into German territory, RAF planes whizzed in and out, plummeting to aim fire at the soldiers the Allied men at the front lines couldn’t reach before rocketing back up into the sky, circling like vultures eyeing their next target. 

But the Germans weren’t going down without a fight. Bellamy had already seen three men in his unit fall – wounded or dead, he hadn’t had the time to determine. They were behind, and it was up to the medics to tend to them. No matter how much Bellamy wanted to run back for them, he knew he needed to keep with the rest of the unit, help lead the charge. 

As Bellamy sprawled on the ground, feeling the shudder of the cannon landing some 50 yards behind him, he noticed that his coat had ripped and his arm was bleeding down near his elbow. _When had that happened?_ He ignored it; it didn’t hurt much anyway. 

Before he climbed back to his feet, he swiped at the sweat coating his face. His fingers came away damp and smudged with soot. It hung heavy in the air, like some ephemeral tapestry of death above them. 

They had to keep pushing forward. He looked around for the men in his unit. They surrounded him, clambering back to their feet, their faces in varying states of fear, alarm, exhaustion, and tremors from adrenaline. They’d been going at it for hours, and Bellamy reckoned they’d go on for hours still.

“Move up!” He yelled, motioning everyone forward. “Weapons hot, and keep your eyes peeled!”

… 

Clarke gasped as she ran in zigzag patterns across the body-littered battlefield, her chest heaving as she tried to expel smoke from her lungs. 

Most of the bodies were German soldiers. 

She’d been running in and out of troop lines, peering at every face she passed, for hours now. Her chest tightened with disappointment every time the back of a curly head, the sweep of a broad set of shoulders turned out not to be Bellamy. Every time she stopped to tend to a wounded soldier or signaled for medics to come and take one away, it got harder and harder to pick herself back up off the ground. A few passing soldiers had screamed at her, asking where her weapon was, but none of them had actually cared enough to stop and enquire further, given that a battle was still raging around them. 

From what she could tell, the Canadian and Anzac soldiers had pushed forward with wild success today, advancing the line several miles. 

She felt every single one of those miles in her bones. The old wound in her right leg was not just aching, but screaming with pain every time she set a foot forward, but she _had_ to keep going. She hadn’t seen Bellamy anywhere yet. Hadn’t seen _anyone_ she knew. 

The battle had already been going on for hours by midday. In another handful of hours, the sun would start to set, and Clarke would lose the massive advantage that daylight afforded her search.

She ignored the pain in her leg and pressed on, touching her hat to make sure her hair was still pinned securely under it. 

…

The sporadic puncturing of gunfire against the air set Bellamy’s teeth on edge as he stumbled forward, his breathing ragged. 

The Allied front lines had gained nearly eight miles of ground today. The sun was less than an hour from disappearing behind the smoky horizon, and the colonels around him seemed to think that the Germans immediately in front of them would surrender their ground any minute now.

But they weren’t. They were weak, but they held their punctured lines, firing back when they could manage to, more in defense now than in any attempt at attack. Their tanks and heavy artillery had been captured, and they’d been losing ground all day.

“Keep firing until you see that white flag,” Bellamy called hoarsely to his men. They were holding their ground, but he could feel the exhaustion radiating off them even with his eyes forward. He knew, because he felt it too. 

“Cycle back for a while,” a voice at his elbow appeared from nowhere. Bellamy gave a sparing glance to the man firing the rifle next to him. It was a British captain. Around him seemed to be his own unit, standing slightly more upright than Bellamy’s own weary men. 

“You and your lads have done more than enough for one day, my friend,” the captain said, his thick Geordie accent noticeable even over the clamor of the gunfire. 

Bellamy’s chest heaved, and he turned to look back at his men. Riley, who was miraculously still alive, had collapsed onto the dirt with fatigue, and was firing on bended knee. Dried blood covered the entire side of Miller’s face, and though Gabriel stood tall, Bellamy could see his arms shaking. He watched as his unit noticed the British company pouring forward, easing in between them and the German line. 

“Thank you,” Bellamy said, his voice guttural and shredded with over-use. He gave the Geordie captain an earnest clap on the shoulder and stepped backward, motioning to his men.

“Fall back!” He called. “These men are taking over for a while.” 

“About goddamn time. We’re only here because of them, you know,” one of the unit’s newer men – Artie – grumbled, his voice cracking. 

Bellamy shook his head as his shoulders sagged. Enough men now stood between him and the enemy line that he felt comfortable turning his back for a moment. 

“Head for those trenches about a half-mile back. The Germans certainly won’t be returning to them tonight, and I’ll wager it’ll be nice to sit down for a bit. They’ll surrender for the night before we get called up again.” Bellamy stumbled after his men as they turned to retrace their steps, heading for the small network of trenches and dodging a field full of other Allied men, most of them walking somewhat sideways, too afraid to completely turn their backs to the noise. 

The sun was going to set soon. Bellamy hoped that the German trench was still well-stocked with lanterns. 

And water. He was sure that a lot of the men in front of him were mere moments away from being sick with dehydration.

Right in front of him, Gabriel paused for a second, cocking his head to one side. 

“What’s up with that fellow?” He asked, pointing in the near distance toward a pale-looking private in a Canadian uniform, seemingly without a unit and running full-tilt for their own.

At least, as running as close to full-tilt as he could for someone with a bit of a limp. 

“Maybe they have a message?” Artie asked, sounding like he didn’t particularly care either way. 

Bellamy pushed past some of his men, elbowing his way to the front. “Whoever he is, someone that hurt shouldn’t be barreling toward the battle line like that,” he shook his head. “Private! What the hell are you doing?” He called out, his mouth curving into a frown. 

Miller, who was about ten yards ahead of Bellamy, had stopped dead in his tracks, shading his eyes. 

“Oh, my god,” he croaked in disbelief.

“What is it?” Bellamy squinted.

The soldier drew closer. 

Then Bellamy saw. 

His heart leapt into his throat. 

… 

A lot of smoke had begun to clear, but the sun was going down. 

Clarke pushed closer and closer to the front lines, her chest constricting with panic as her hopes flagged. 

There were just too many men. It was all so spread out. 

She was never going to find him. 

On her left, a unit of British troops strode past, looking surprisingly all right for wear given the time of day. 

“They should be up here at the front of the line somewhere,” their captain said. “Company A, 4th Canadian. Keep an eye out,” he said to his men. “I’ve been told to relieve Major Blake and his men, likely for the rest of the evening.”

Clarke’s fist flew to her mouth, and she bit down on her knuckles to keep from screaming with raw relief. 

Fighting to catch her breath, she jogged to catch up with the captain.

“I’m sorry, sir, did you just say ‘Major Blake’? Do you mean a Major _Bellamy_ Blake?” She huffed as she worked to keep up with the stride of his long legs.

“The very same,” he replied, giving her a quizzical look. 

_He’d been promoted._

Clarke didn’t stop to give an explanation.

She began to run again. 

Bellamy was up ahead. Less than a mile away. 

She was going to find him.

She stumbled across grass and dirt, dodging lifeless bodies in gray German coats and tripping over churned up holes in the ground. 

“Help!” A feeble voice somewhere to her right called. A voice rising up from the grass. 

Her stomach wobbled.

She couldn’t just leave him. She was a nurse. She’d pledged to do what she could to save these men.

Trying to quell the nerves within her, she knelt to the ground and leaned in toward the man. He was bleeding badly from below the knee on his left leg.

“Where does it hurt?” She asked, taking two tries to get her voice out around her uneven breathing. 

“Just my leg,” he answered, his voice the sharp twang of an Australian’s. “Oy, has anyone ever told you you look a bit like a girl, soldier?”

Clarke refrained from rolling her eyes. “Just your leg? Nothing else?”

“Nothin’ else,” he confirmed. “But I can’t stand on it.”

“You two!” Clarke yelled at two aimless-looking Canadian privates who were stumbling through the grass. “Come walk this man to the closest medic tent! He can’t stand on his own!”

As soon as Clarke saw them off, satisfied, she hurried forward again.

The ground was so littered with shrapnel and fallen men that it might as well have been a minefield. She dodged and stumbled, pushing on.

She felt that her heart would burst if another second went by without seeing him.

She felt that her heart would burst if she _did._

The sun was low over the ridge in the distance. She didn’t have much time. 

And then, she spotted a unit of Canadian soldiers walking away from the battle line. Heading toward an empty trench off in the distance. 

A unit that looked like they’d just been relieved.

She squinted into the rapidly fading sunlight as she ran, trying not to cry with overwhelming exhaustion and the pain in her leg. 

And then, against the pink-orange glow of the sunset, she saw him.

She couldn’t make out his features, but she’d recognize that silhouette anywhere. 

Some of the unit around him had stopped, watching her draw closer and closer to them.

She saw Miller. Was the look on his face confusion, or shock? Did he recognize her?

Bellamy was pushing his way to the front now. 

He was yelling something at her.

 _What was he saying?_ In her weariness, something between Clarke’s ears and brain had disconnected. All she could hear was the rush of her own blood. 

She was twenty yards away now.

Ten.

She saw something in his face change.

His soot-covered, weary, beautiful face. 

_"_ _Bellamy!”_

Her voice was a choked cry as she threw herself into his arms, her body’s full length slamming against his.

He rocked slightly, and then his arms were around her, hoisting her up against him. His hands wrapped around her waist, his face buried in her neck. 

“Clarke,” she felt his lips murmur against her skin, her name brimming with a multitude of emotions on his tongue. 

She understood. She felt them in her heart, too. All of them. 

_"_ _Clarke,_ ” he repeated, squeezing her tighter, cradling her to his chest as if he was afraid she’d disappear if he let go. 

She clung to him, twisting her legs around his waist and snaking a hand behind his neck to bury her fingers in the curls that peeked out from beneath his helmet. 

“I missed you,” she whispered, and she felt hot tears roll down her cheeks and drip onto his shoulder. 

An awkward throat-clearing sound startled her, and she hid her face against Bellamy, embarrassed. Only a few of the men standing around them would have recognized her – the rest of them likely thought they were seeing Bellamy passionately embrace a pasty young private they’d never seen before in their lives. 

Bellamy’s voice rumbled in his chest against hers. “Miller, will you take everyone down into the trench? And clear out a dugout, if you find one?”

“Of course,” Clarke heard Miller answer from somewhere behind her. Was that a smile she heard in his tired voice?

Clarke could hear the sound of footsteps moving away from them. Still, she did not let go. 

She didn’t want to ever let go.

Bellamy lowered her to the ground, but his hands stayed at her waist, clutching to her for dear life through her coat.

“You’re a sight I thought I’d never see,” he murmured, a crooked smile shining on his face beneath watery eyes. “What are you doing, princess?”

Clarke’s heart was so full, it barely left room for her to speak. “I came back,” she answered, too tired to be self-conscious of the crack in her voice.

“Like this?” He said, still smiling faintly as he traced the edge of her face with his fingertip. His eyes stayed on her unwaveringly, filled with something between hunger and disbelief. It made her stomach swoop. 

“Nurses aren’t allowed past the trenches anymore,” she shrugged, trying to discreetly take her weight off her right leg. 

God, here he really was, standing in front of her again. She reached up to wipe the soot from his cheek, beaming at the sight of his freckles underneath, stark as ever. 

He frowned. “You’re hurt,” he muttered, glancing down at her leg.

Clarke shook her head. “No more hurt than I was before. The place in my leg where I was shot healed, but it still hurts if I put weight on it for too long. It’s fine, Bellamy, really.” 

His frown deepened, and he broke her gaze. 

Whatever hurt her, hurt him. 

She knew how he felt. And she wanted to take his face in her hands and kiss him for it, to prove that she was fine, that she was real.

That he was loved. 

“We should get down to the trenches,” he said finally, one of his hands trailing down her side and making the short leap to her dangling hand. “You can rest in there. It’s been the longest day,” he said, still shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe the moment he was living. 

“Once you’re in a dugout, you can be yourself,” he said, leading her down the hill by the hand. She could see that he was going more slowly than usual. Was it because he was worn out, or because he was looking out for her leg?

She squeezed his hand. “I’m probably going to be kicked out of the VAD for this. I knew what I was doing. I knew the risk. It’s all right.” 

“Have you been running around out here all day without a weapon? Without a _helmet?_ ”

Clarke dodged his question. “I’ve been tending to the wounded while I searched for you. You’re a hard man to find, Bellamy Blake. Or should I say, _Major_ Bellamy Blake.” She smiled tiredly up at him.

“Small promotion. Only took three years for them to give me one,” he shrugged. 

They were nearly at the trenches now. Bellamy stopped, turning to look at her.

“I still can’t believe you’re here,” he said quietly, reaching up to brush a palm across her cheek. He ran his thumb over her bottom lip, and she swallowed hard with the effort not to kiss it. She was still dressed like a man, after all, and she didn’t want to pull Bellamy into the scandal she was almost certainly going to cause. 

“I don’t think I was really supposed to be anywhere else,” she whispered back, leaning into his touch. 

… 

The weight of Clarke in his arms had reignited all of the energy that had left Bellamy’s body during battle, and now it hummed in his veins like live wires. As the two of them descended into the trench, the sun just now dipping below the horizon behind them, Bellamy was greeted by the golden light of lanterns and the tired smiles of his men. 

Clarke hung slightly behind him, her head ducked low, and Bellamy could sense her shyness. She only knew about fifteen or so of the hundred men that formed his new unit, and she likely was a bit self-conscious of her current disheveled and decidedly masculine appearance. 

Miller stepped forward, grinning at them. “I explained it to everyone. Don’t worry,” he said kindly, peeking around Bellamy to address Clarke. “It’s good to have you back. Best medic we ever had,” Miller said with a nod.

Bellamy twisted around to see Clarke biting her lower lip, as she always had; though, this time, she was biting back a smile.

“I’m glad you’re all right,” she said, stepping forward to briefly embrace him. 

As she stepped back to stand beside Bellamy, he noticed Gabriel’s eyes following her, studying her face intently. 

Bellamy pushed any unsettled feelings back down inside him. Clarke hadn’t come back to see Gabriel, no matter how he was currently looking at her.

“I’m sorry, have we met before?” Clarke asked uncertainly. She’d noticed Gabriel’s gaze too.

He shook his head, his cheeks warming to a faint pink in embarrassment. “No, sorry. I’m Gabriel Santiago. I’ve heard good things about you,” he said, smiling as he stretched out his hand for her to shake. “You just remind me a lot of Josephine – I’m sorry, a girl I used to know – from back home, is all.” Clearly a bit embarrassed, he looked away.

“Officer’s dugout is open around the corner of the left alley,” Miller said to Bellamy, who nodded gratefully. 

“Everyone, I think we’re down for the night. Look for some food, get some rest. You’ve earned it,” Bellamy assured them.

“Does anyone need any medical attention?” Clarke called out. “I’ve got my medic supplies.”

Bellamy suppressed a tired grin. Of course she was still taking the time to offer her help. That’s why she’d signed up for this whole thing at the very beginning, after all. 

Miraculously, only one soldier came forward. The Canadians had fared incredibly well today, especially compared to the German troops they’d been up against. 

Bellamy leaned against the sandbags reinforcing the trench wall as he looked on.

“What’s your name, soldier?” Clarke asked kindly as she sterilized the torn skin across the back of the man’s hand. 

“Alastor,” he answered, shifting from foot to foot as one did when they were nearly too tired to hold themselves upright.

“Alastor?” Clarke repeated. “I’ll hazard a guess that your parents are great readers of mythology, then.”

“My mother,” he confirmed. “I’ve always thought it could be much worse, you know. Imagine being named Apollo with a face this ruddy.” 

Clarke half-snorted a laugh, pausing her careful stitches.

“Be careful with that hand for a week, Alastor,” she said as parting words, getting slowly to her feet. 

“Anything for you, miss,” Alastor called back, grinning. 

Clarke sidled over to Bellamy. “You know, I thought I’d be free of those comments while I was dressed like a man.”

“Well, your secret’s out, at least among the unit. They won’t get you in trouble,” he added, looping a finger around the belt hoop of her coat and pulling her along. “And you still make for a very pretty boy.” 

Bellamy’s heart skipped a beat. They were seconds away from being alone together again for the first time in months. In eons, it felt like. 

They’d been apart for long enough. It was time for them to be Bellamy and Clarke together once more. 

“The Germans always have nicer trenches than we do,” Bellamy grumbled as he pushed open a wooden door set in a frame, leading them into a dugout.

Miller had chosen a good one for them. The bed was large given the circumstances, and made neatly with a blanket and two pillows. A large lantern sat burning on the table in the corner, along with a small pile of rations, flanked by two wooden chairs. Even a short bookshelf lined the opposite wall, though none of the books filling it would be comprehensible to the current English-speaking inhabitants. 

They’d made massive progress today. The Germans who were camped here had clearly been in these trenches for a long time. 

Bellamy tugged off his helmet and let his pack slide to the ground, flinching as the strap rubbed against the wound that he’d gotten on his arm several hours ago. 

“You’re hurt,” Clarke exclaimed, hurrying over to him. She grabbed his arm with both hands, tugging it closer to her eyes. “You should have said something. I’ll stitch this up in a jiffy.” 

She began unbuttoning his coat without preamble, and Bellamy suddenly forgot how to breathe. Her fingers couldn’t even reach bare skin, but the brush of them over his chest nearly made him dizzy.

“I can do it,” he said abruptly, moving away. “Get the needle.”

Her eyebrows puckered, and she gave him a small frown, but she did as he said. 

Slowly, he removed his coat and the shirt underneath, depositing the chain with his mother’s ring on the little bedside table. He was only naked from the waist up, but somehow, he felt as bare as if he’d been wearing nothing at all. 

“Do you mind if I take these pins out first?” She asked, pointing to her head. “They’re killing me.”

Bellamy nodded noncommittally. 

She yanked off her hat, tossing it onto one of the wooden chairs in the corner. Her golden strands shone in the lamplight, piled atop her head in a hurricane of pins and whorls. 

One by one, she pulled out the hairpins, setting them on top of the shelf. As she worked, her hair began to fall back around her shoulders and down her back, her waves framing her face in a beautiful mess. 

He was so done for.

Before she got her suture kit, she removed her own coat, her white undershirt sleeves loose around her wrists. 

Bellamy, helpless as he was, noticed that her chest was much flatter than usual. She must have bound it.

Her dedication to her plan was impressive.

“Sit down here by the light,” she instructed, clutching her needle, surgical thread, and iodine capsule. 

He did as he was told, his throat constricted with his own silence. 

“We’ve been in this war for so long, Bellamy,” she said quietly as she dabbed at the spot just above his inner elbow to sterilize it. “It’s a miracle you’ve never gotten anything worse, and for that, I’m grateful.”

“I guess I am a lucky bastard, huh? Even if it’s hard to feel like it,” he replied, unsurprised by the bitterness in his own voice. 

He was ready to go home. They all were, on all sides. He’d been praying for weeks now that this offensive would be the beginning of the end, one way or another. 

“Your skin is soft here,” she remarked, brushing the inside of his arm with her thumb. He felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck. “This will sting a bit, I’m sorry.”

Bellamy tried to focus on the pain of the needle threading the wound closed, hoping it would distract him, be his saving grace from the way that her hands on him lit his skin on fire from within. The loose strands of her hair gently skimmed over his forearm, and he wanted to stop her and sieve his fingers through her golden waves. 

He was in absolute ruins. He needed space between the two of them as quickly as possible. To cool down. 

“There,” she announced, tying off the thread. He stood immediately, all but pushing her hands away from him, and left to sit at the foot of the bed on the other side of the room. 

“Bellamy,” she said, her voice tense. He didn’t look up at her. “Bellamy, what’s wrong?” 

“I’m just tired,” he replied. And he was tired. But that was the least of his problems at this moment. 

“You’re not acting like yourself, Bellamy,” she said, unyielding. “You won’t even touch me! Have I done something wrong? _Please_ just tell me,” she asked. 

The note of desperation in her voice was what broke him down. 

“You haven’t done anything wrong, Clarke,” he said in a low voice, shifting uncomfortably in his position on the edge of the bed. “I promise. It’s just that–” He cleared his throat, embarrassed over what he was about to admit out loud. “What’s wrong is how _badly_ I want to do things that we shouldn’t do.” 

The words hung stark, heavy between them. Clarke stood in silence for a moment, and blood roared in Bellamy’s ears. He could feel her eyes burning into him, but he dared not meet her gaze. 

Slowly, the off-kilter thud of her boots drew near as she limped to stand in front of him. The touch of her palms fell gently against the sides of his face, and he didn’t have it in him to pull away. Gently, she tugged his jaw upward, so that he had nowhere to look but at her. 

“Bellamy,” she objected, her voice husky, cracking. “I _want_ you to touch me.”

The live wires that were his veins sang at a fever pitch. He lifted a hand to cover one of hers.

“I love you,” she whispered, her words thick, earnest on her tongue. 

Something heavy deep within Bellamy shifted, settling into place. Those three words fell in like a final puzzle piece in his heart, showing him the complete picture of the two of them.

She loved him back. She loved him back like he loved her.

“So touch me,” she said, her voice trembling between her flushed lips. 

… 

Clarke could feel her heart beating in her chest like a wild rabbit’s. She’d just broken a cardinal social rule of courtship – she’d told the man “I love you” first. 

But _she did._ More than anything. Why should she wait? Why should truth follow a schedule?

And she thought – hoped – that he loved her too. She thought she’d seen it between the lines of his last letter. She thought she’d felt it in the way he held her in his arms.

As if he never wanted her to be anywhere else but there.

And now – here he was, trying to be noble. Trying to do the right thing, to protect her “virtue” or whatever silly thing it was that women were supposed to be held under while the men did whatever they wanted. 

Well right now, she was going to have whatever she wanted, too. 

And she wanted Bellamy. 

“Touch me,” she said, her eyes riveted to his own. She couldn’t get enough of the deep brown, of the soft lashes, the scattered freckles below on his cheekbones. She could drown in him. 

She was standing inches away from where he sat at the edge of the bed, and she could feel her knees shaking slightly. She hoped he didn’t see. 

And then, as if in slow motion, his hands were reaching toward her, up, up, toward the collar of her borrowed undershirt. 

One by one, he undid the buttons running down the center.

Clarke’s breasts had been aching against their binding since early this morning, but now, as his knuckles brushed against her, they began to feel a different kind of sensitivity. 

Bellamy undid the final button and pushed the shirt away from her, halfway down her shoulders. 

His eyes stayed on hers until the last second as he leaned in, wrapping his hands around the curves of her waist and pressing an openmouthed kiss to the bare skin of her stomach. 

A man had never touched her like this before. She bit her lip to keep from groaning. Below her hips, she felt her legs go weak, as if the muscles had been knocked out of them. 

Did it always feel like this, to be touched by a man? 

Her eyes fell shut. There was a new tightness in her body, in her center. It was hot and impossible to ignore. 

“You beat me to it,” he murmured against the skin just above her navel, his words vibrating slightly against her.

“Hm?” Was all she could manage in reply. She wanted his mouth not just there, but _everywhere._

“I was going to tell you the moment I saw you,” he continued, digging his fingers a little more into her skin, holding her near to him possessively. 

“That I loved you. That I _love_ you,” he breathed, his thumbs tracing circles over her flesh. 

Clarke’s heart flew into her mouth.

She was overwhelmed. 

His eyes on her. His warm hands on her skin, skin that no one had ever touched like this before. 

His words.

He _loved_ her. 

Was this really happening to her? Was it finally happening?

Something _good?_

A smile broke across her lips at the same moment a tear escaped the corner of her eye. 

She didn’t know it was possible to feel something good _this much._

She opened her eyes. And there he was, smiling back up at her. 

Right now, nothing else mattered. It was him. The two of them, here. And that was everything _._

And suddenly, he was standing, his eyes locked on hers, almost no space left in between their bodies. 

“I love you,” he repeated. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.” 

Before Clarke could even begin to think of a reply, his face inched down toward hers. She could feel his soft breath on her mouth for a split second before his lips touched her lips, pressing to them gently with more warmth, more softness than she’d even imagined. 

His mouth moved on hers slowly, almost lazily, as if he wanted to cover every inch of her lips with his own, as if he was worshiping her mouth with his lips. After a moment, he parted her mouth under his, tenderly pushing his tongue against her bottom lip. She felt his hands slip beneath her hair and hold her neck on either side, keeping her steady as he kissed her. 

Behind closed eyes, she saw stars. She nearly forgot to breathe. She knew that, deep down, she’d wanted this for a very, very long time, but now that she’d gotten it, she hadn’t realized just how _badly_ she’d wanted it. 

Between them, his fingers fumbled at the knot she’d tied between her ribs to secure the linen binding her breasts. 

She searched herself for alarm, for uncertainty. A man had never seen her so bare before. 

All she found within herself was that she really, _desperately_ wanted him to. 

He loosened the knot, and the pressure around her began to ease immediately. Slowly, he unwound the binding, pulling it looser and looser, tugging it away from her. 

And in just moments, she was standing bare in front of him, completely naked from the waist up, just as he was. 

His eyes roved over her hungrily, reverently, and a thrill curled in the pit of her stomach. Sitting back down on the bed, his hands slipped down to her hips and pulled her in even closer to him. She lifted her legs, climbing over him so that she straddled his lap, surprised at her own confidence. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he said hoarsely, his hand skating up her waist to cup the side of her breast. His thumb grazed over her nipple, and it hardened quickly under his touch. “Perfect.”

Before she could respond, he bent his head and his mouth descended on her, covering her as his tongue brushed wetly up and over the peak of her breast. This time, she could not stifle her groan as she arched her back, pushing herself toward him and pressing her body further against his warm lips. 

“Bellamy,” she moaned as quietly as she could, her skin burning with the trail of kisses he was slowly blazing across her chest. He pressed his mouth between her breasts, his tongue hot against her heartbeat. She could feel him smile as he continued left, swiping over her other nipple with agonizing purpose. 

Blood rose in her skin, sending a pink flush everywhere that Bellamy touched. Her hands slid from his neck down to his chest, and she pressed her palms against the smooth skin there, taut over naturally-gained muscle. 

She wanted her skin on his skin. 

Gently, she pushed against him, and he laughed against her breastbone. “What is it?” he smiled up at her, breathing heavily, reaching to push her hair from her face and twisting a curl around his finger. 

“Lay down,” she whispered, mesmerized by the glow in his dark, shining eyes. 

He complied, his hands still firm around her waist, and she lowered herself over him. She bit back a whimper as the sensitive peaks of her breasts grazed his chest, and she lowered herself even more, pressing her upper body flush against his.

His smile faded slightly, replaced by a darker expression, and he craned his neck up to meet her mouth with his again. His lips were warm, strong, unyielding. Clarke nearly felt drunk on them. 

When they both struggled to catch their breath, he laughed, clutching her to him as she collapsed on top of him. 

“It has been the _longest_ day,” he said once more, breathing heavily. “Damn this war. No matter how much I’d rather not, maybe we should wait.”

Clarke wanted to contradict him, but her body was already betraying her. Despite the fire lit low in her belly, despite this new ache she felt for him, more powerful than ever before, her eyes were already drooping as he drew lazy circles on her bare back with his fingertips. 

They loved each other.

And that love would still be there in the morning, when they weren’t so beaten and exhausted that they could barely lift their heads. 

“We should drink something,” she said grudgingly, rolling off his body and wincing at the cool underground air of the dugout that now washed over her flushed skin. “We’ll be sick if we don’t.”

His fingertips lightly traced down her back as she groaned and sat up. The shyness Clarke had lacked in being undressed in front of someone before made a late appearance, and the nagging urge to cover up tugged at her irrationally. She could feel his eyes follow her as she limped across the room to reach down into her pack. Underneath her nurse’s uniform, she found her nightshift and quickly tugged it over her head. Once she felt it fall past her knees, she reached discreetly under and unbuttoned her borrowed uniform pants. She’d worn her own underthings – she drew the line at borrowing something like that. She limped over to one of the kitchen chairs and sat, joining Bellamy, who’d changed into a pair of loose pajama pants and was alternating between sipping from a flask and slurping from a tinned can of beans. 

“It must have been nice, eating something other than tinned food up in London,” he remarked, his eyes still steady on her as she reached down to unroll her stockings below her knees. 

“England is still rationing, but yes, eating hot food on real plates and having a glass of milk from time to time was very easy to get accustomed to,” Clarke nodded. Now that she mentioned it, she’d really love a glass of milk right now. The thought was almost laughable in a place like this. 

“I’m sure it’s hard to come back here, after being there for so long,” he said quietly. Clarke’s head snapped up to find he’d finally looked away, his eyes down on his empty tin.

“It isn’t,” she said softly. The uncertainty in his face tugged at Clarke’s chest. She knew what it was like to doubt if someone really wanted to be with you, and she didn’t for a moment want him to think that she regretted what she’d done. 

“The truth is,” she continued. “No matter how long I stayed in London, it never felt like I was supposed to be there. The hospital work was fine – cleaner than it is down here, anyways, and there was much less emergency work – but my work there. . .it somehow felt like it didn’t make as much of a difference. I wasn’t exactly saving many lives, you know. It’s different here. Working in the field has this – I don’t know – _immediacy_ to it. Like I’m making a difference in a life. Like I can actually understand what they’ve been through. And I like it better that way.”

Clarke tossed off her wrinkled stockings to let her skin breathe. 

“And you’re here,” she added, reaching to clasp the hand that lay on the table in hers. His eyes reconnected with her gaze, and the faintest of smiles tugged at the corner of his mouth. “My family is gone now, Bellamy. The city I came from is in ruins, and will be for years to come, I suspect. With you is the only place still left that I ever want to be.”

His eyes darkened. The smile on his lips faltered as he squeezed her hand. “I’m so sorry about your mother, Clarke. About Halifax. All of it. I felt sick when I heard.”

Clarke suddenly felt a bit queasy herself as the loss she kept at bay most days began to seep back in through the cracks. 

So much loss. 

She couldn’t lose anyone else. She wouldn’t be able to withstand it. 

Blinking back the prickling sensation in her eyes, she reached for the second flask and twisted it open, swallowing as much water as she could. She’d wake up sick with dehydration tomorrow if she didn’t. 

“The pictures in the paper don’t do it justice, Bellamy,” she mumbled, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. “If your next stay of leave sends you through Halifax, I hope that it will look better then than it did when I left it. I stayed for a month to help care for the wounded and even then, it was still rubble. I could hardly stand to look around me when I walked down the street by the time I left for London.”

“They will rebuild,” Bellamy reassured her, his thumb circling over the back of her hand. “They’ll have to. Just as the entirety of western Europe will, I’m afraid. It’s a ghastly sight, what we’ve all done.” 

“A scourge. That’s what it’s been,” Clarke said tiredly. She followed Bellamy’s gaze to her leg. The place where she’d been shot was now a jagged circle of a scar, still raised and purplish-pink. She knew that it would never fully go away. 

“It didn’t heal right, did it?” He asked, his voice a melancholic, guilt-ridden shade. 

“It’s not your fault,” Clarke reassured him. “I didn’t exactly have any quality care available when it happened, and it was a bad spot in the muscle to be shot anyways. I’m honestly lucky I didn’t lose my leg below the knee, really. I’m – I’m sure the limp will go away in time. It’s only been what, eight months? Nine? Time is so hard to keep track of these days, it seems.”

“Well, I’m here to carry you whenever you don’t feel like walking anymore, you know.” The grin he gave her was weighed down with sadness and didn’t reach his eyes.

“It’s all right. Our men and the Anzacs gained so much ground today, maybe I won’t have to run around nearly as much tomorrow,” Clarke said around a mouthful of her own tinned beans. They were pretty terrible, it was true, but she wasn’t about to admit to Bellamy how much she missed the cafeteria meals in London, no matter how ordinary they had been.

“You’re going back out tomorrow? Are you sure?” Bellamy looked as if he didn’t approve, but she internally applauded him for not trying to stop her. 

“Of course. They’ll always need medics on the field, Bellamy. I couldn’t live with myself if I just sat by and waited. Besides, I’m hoping if I do enough good at my old job, they’ll let me keep it. Or, at the very least, not kick me out of the VAD altogether.” Clarke shrugged, trying to push away thoughts that surrounded the consequences of her actions today. Not only had she left the field hospital a nurse short, but she’d expressly went against orders to stay off the battlefield. 

His jaw was set hard, but he nodded. He understood. 

Bellamy always understood. 

A wave washed over Clarke as her eyes roved his face, his mussed curls and pursed lips, the golden glow of his skin in the nearly-extinguished lamplight. She’d missed him _so_ much. 

His eyes softened as he stood from the table and walked around to her side. Before she could understand what he was doing, his arms were hooked beneath her knees and around her back. He hoisted her against his chest, tucking her head beneath his chin.

He was carrying her to bed.

“Bellamy, the bed’s only a few strides away. I could have managed.” But her words were half-hearted, and she leaned against the crook of his shoulder. 

“You could have, but you don’t have to,” he said as he gently laid her down on the mattress. He slid in next to her, drawing the blanket up over them. 

She rolled toward him, resting her head over his outstretched shoulder and tangling her legs with his. She felt a hand sneak to her waist, settling in the curve there. His lips pressed softly to her hairline as the lantern flickered out, throwing them into darkness. 

“I missed you,” he breathed, pulling her closer. 

She kissed the soft skin of his neck in response, too tired to put her reply into words.

… 

“You don’t have to stand guard, you know,” a tired-looking, but squeaky-clean Clarke said from Bellamy’s shoulder, emerging from the communal bath house with her dirty uniform bundled in her arms. 

“Couldn’t rest easy if I didn’t,” Bellamy replied, shifting from one foot to the other in his muddy uniform. He gazed down at her damp hair and flushed cheeks quietly, his chest catching at the sight of the deep purple half-moons beneath her eyes. He wished he could kiss them away.

She was so tired. They all were. 

Amiens had been taken by the Allies by midday. The American soldiers, the “doughboys” as they were being called, had done most of the legwork this time, to the relief of all the British and Commonwealth troops. Even so, they were still in the heat of summer, and securing undeniable victory over Amiens had still been fraught with peril and laborious sweat.

But something was different this time. Morale was shifting, on both sides. The Allies were holding their heads higher – maybe there was some truth this time to the oft-repeated rumor that it would be _this_ battle that would be the beginning of the end. That had been said about every large battle for the last three years, but maybe – _maybe_ – there was a grain of truth to it now.

Right now, the front lines felt like a zero sum game. The boost in morale amongst the Allies caused an equal, yet opposite reaction in the Central armies. Their losses had grown heavy, and land they’d held for a long time was being capitulated. More and more soldiers had simply given up, offering themselves in helpless surrender once they stared down the barrels of the Allied artillery. 

They’d gained enough ground to have taken up the abandoned land on which the officer’s cabins had been built, and, in an incredible stroke of luck, there had been bathhouses there, still functional and relatively clean. It was exactly what everyone needed after days of marching and running in wool uniforms under the blistering late summer sun. 

“Let me walk you back, and I’ll take my turn,” Bellamy said, nodding toward the small officer’s cabin the two of them had been given. 

“Take all the time you need,” she sighed, plodding alongside him, favoring her right leg again. “I’m lucky I get to stay here at all. No, not lucky. It’s thanks to you. And I’m grateful.” She looped her hand into the crook of his elbow, leaning against him.

Bellamy had seen over the past couple of days how worried Clarke was that she’d be kicked out of the VAD altogether and sent back to Canada for the little cross-dressing stunt she’d pulled. Bellamy knew that neither of them could bear it if that was allowed to happen, and so he’d taken it upon himself to speak to both the division’s head nurse and a commanding officer in the field – the officer ranked above Shumway, and not Shumway himself, as Bellamy had no faith in him when it came to compassionate decision-making. He’d pleaded her case for her to Brigadier General Augustus, and though the head nurse was displeased, she deferred to the general, who said simply that she may retain her position as long as she does not mind the risk, and as long as Bellamy’s new unit did not mind. The ones that already knew Clarke had agreed enthusiastically, and if the new men disagreed, they did not voice their protests. 

And so Clarke was once again a medic on the front lines, this time for Company A of the 4th Canadian division. 

She’d looked so relieved when he’d told her the news that he thought she might cry. 

He’d felt similar himself. 

“I’ll be back soon,” he promised her as she slipped through the rickety cabin door. “Give your leg a break, all right?”

“Just call me ‘Peg-leg Griffin,’” she replied dryly, disappearing into the dim room within.

Bellamy turned back toward the bath house, squinting in the fading yellow light of the sunset. It would be dark soon, and for once, the twilight sky didn’t echo with the bursting shells of artillery or the rapid patter of gunfire. 

The silence wouldn’t last long, but Bellamy tried to enjoy it while he could. He’d heard the provisionary battle plans in the chance that they won – and they had. They’d march on, pushing the enemy lines back farther, farther, for as long as they could. The commanding generals thought that if they could substantially break the Hindenburg line, they _might_ be home by Christmas. Truly, this time. 

As Bellamy slipped into the bath and scrubbed days’ worth of grime from his body, he allowed himself to wonder what he would do if they _did_ get to go home for Christmas. He wondered where he could go. Octavia and the McIntyres had made New York their more-or-less permanent home in the last year or so, and of course he’d want to visit her. But he had little affection for the smoky, bustling city, and as much as he loved his sister, he wasn’t confident that he’d want to live there for the long haul. And even before the disaster in Halifax, it would have been presumptuous to assume he could go home with Clarke. 

Except now, she wouldn’t have anyone to return home to. 

And he’d never leave her. 

Bellamy reached up to fiddle with the ring hanging from the chain around his neck. If he proposed, and she accepted, he’d make sure that she always had someone to come home to. 

But he couldn’t. Not yet. VAD nurses were immediately disqualified from service once they became betrothed, and he knew Clarke wouldn’t want that. Especially not now, after working so hard to get back here.

And leaving service would mean leaving him behind again as well. 

No. No, he couldn’t bear the thought of that. 

So he would save the question, save the ring for the time being, and only pray that he could ask soon.

Pray that she would say yes. 

Bellamy finished drying off and changed into his clean pair of fatigues before heading back to the cabin. The sky above him now was the purple blush of dusk, and he could see the faint light of a lantern flickering in the tiny window on the cabin’s side. 

As he shut the door behind him, his eyes adjusting to the warm glow of the lamplight, he found that Clarke had already changed into her nightshift and was perched on the edge of the cabin’s small table. She shot him a tiny smile as she nibbled on something between her fingers.

Bellamy squinted. What was she eating? They’d already had dinner rations an hour or so ago with the rest of the unit. Was that..?

“Clarke, where in the _world_ did you get toffee in a place like this?” He smirked at her, shaking his head. 

“Little Alastor gave it to me as a thanks for patching him up,” she grinned, snapping off another bite of the buttery, crunchy confection. “His mother mailed it to him. Apparently she’s living in London at the moment, so it made it mostly in one piece.”

“And you weren’t going to share?” Bellamy pretended to take offense, crossing his arms over his chest. Really, he was happy to see her smile over the little things. He was happy that she still could.

“Of course I was going to share, though I shouldn’t. Don’t you dare think I’ve forgotten that one time where you lunged for my ice cream cone without asking first. Come on,” she gestured, pointing with sticky fingers to the chair below her perch. 

Bellamy dropped his things to the floor and bent down to pull off his boots. He ambled over to her, sinking wearily into the chair and watching the lamplight illuminate the mostly-dry loose locks of hair framing her face and tumbling down her shoulders. 

She snapped off a generous piece and handed it out to him, wiggling her fingers. 

“Thank you.” He leaned forward and ate it from her hand, relishing the warm, buttery, sugary taste of the toffee. Things like candy and sweets, or really any kind of food that couldn’t be preserved in a tin, felt worlds away to Bellamy – had for years now. The novelty of it nearly made his teeth ache. 

“Do you think the rumors are true this time, Bellamy?” Clarke asked suddenly, swallowing down her last bite. “About it being the beginning of the end. They’ve been wrong about this sort of thing so many times now that I’ve lost count.”

Bellamy sighed, leaning back in his chair. “They could be. I’ve never seen us push this far into German territory, nor have I ever seen them surrender themselves with so little fight. I think they’re tired, like we are. And if reports are true, they’re starving – much more than we are. Something might finally give.”

“It’s always felt like hoping will curse it,” she mused. “And I dare not do that.” Stifling a yawn, she slid down from the edge of the table, dusting off her hands. Bellamy lifted his hand to reach for hers, brushing her dangling fingers, twining them between his. At his touch, she stepped backward, sinking sideways onto his lap. 

This was it. This was what he craved. Not sweets. 

Her.

He looped his arm around her waist, drawing her to him. She reached up to wrap her arms around his neck and dropped her head against his shoulder. 

He wondered if she could feel his heartbeat, erratic and pulsing through the skin of his chest, as if it was trying to jump into hers. 

They rested in silence for a moment, clinging to each other, finding peace where there were no words. 

For a moment, he wondered if she’d fallen asleep, until he felt her tuck her face closer to him, nudging the bridge of her nose against the side of his neck.

And then her lips were there, pressing warmly against the column of his throat, a kiss against his pulse. 

His hand tightened around her waist. 

She could so easily drive him mad. 

“Bellamy,” she breathed, her hands reaching for his face. Her palms grazed the stubble on his cheeks as she turned his head to hers.

He watched her eyes flutter shut, and her mouth was on his, warm and languid and sugary sweet. His heart hammered with a swoop in his chest.

His hand gripping her waist slid down to her hip as she rested her forearms against his chest, clinging to his shoulders and pressing her weight against him. He lifted a hand to the back of her head and twined his fingers through her hair to hold her steady as their kisses shifted to something hotter, more urgent, open-mouthed and hungry. 

The heat gathering within him was getting undeniable. 

“Clarke, we should stop,” he murmured against her mouth, and she dropped her lips to his jaw, kissing her way toward his ear.

“I don’t want to,” she replied softly. She leaned back, searching for his eyes. “Bellamy, I love you. I _trust_ you. I don’t want to stop.”

He held her gaze. Above her flushed cheeks, her eyes on his were steady, sure. There was. . .want in them. She _wanted_ this. 

“Are you sure?” He asked, his voice nearly sticking in his throat. 

She nodded and leaned toward him, pressing her lips to his again.

He kissed her back in earnest. He’d wanted this for so long, but now that he had it, he almost felt shy about it. 

He’d loved her for so long, wanted her for so long. . .and he didn’t even feel worthy of her. Clarke Griffin was _sacred_. 

He didn’t feel like he even deserved to be chosen by her like this.

But he’d loved her for _so_ long. He’d never find it within him to deny himself something he’d longed for so badly. 

And she wanted it, too. 

He smiled against her mouth as he felt her turn to straddle him, pushing at the hem of his shirt with hot, greedy hands.

He indulged her and reached for the back of his collar to tug it over his head himself.

She skimmed over the skin of his chest and stomach with her hands. The faint graze of the tips of her nails against him sent a ripple of pleasure through the pit of his stomach.

The faintest of groans rumbled in her throat as he pressed his mouth to it, and she squirmed against his lap. 

“Undress me,” she gasped, breaking away to stare hard at him, her eyes blazing.

Bellamy swallowed hard. 

He’d seen her bare from the waist up a few nights ago, but he knew right now that once he took her nightshift off, she’d be wearing absolutely nothing underneath. 

This was really happening.

“All right,” he nodded, gently lifting her from his lap and back to her feet in front of him.

…

Clarke was acutely aware of how shallow her breathing had gone when Bellamy bent down to reach for the hem of her nightshift that fluttered below her knees. 

His hands were so big. The calluses on them were rough, yet his touch was so gentle. She thought she might have stopped breathing when she felt the thin fabric of her gown lift, rising up over her body, skimming her bare skin.

He gently lifted it over her head, and it fluttered to the floor. She was standing before him, totally undressed. 

She knew that a woman was supposed to save her body for her husband, and him alone. 

But right now, Bellamy felt like more than a husband.

Bellamy was more a part of her than anyone else.

Bellamy was _everything_. 

Clarke felt her cheeks and neck burning as she watched his gaze drag down over her, slowly, like he was committing every inch of her body to memory. 

She hoped that he liked what he saw. She was thinner than she was before the war, and she knew that her hips could have been wider, curvier, that her legs had gotten a bit scrawny despite all the walking – and limping – she had to do. 

The longer the silence stretched on, the more self-conscious she felt.

She moved to cross her arms over herself. “I’m sorry if–”

He surged forward, curling his fingers around her waist, his mouth closing hotly over hers.

“There’s not a single thing to apologize for,” he murmured, his face buried in her neck as his hands skated up to close over her breasts, his thumbs circling over her nipples. “Not ever.”

And then he was lifting her, hoisting her onto the edge of the table for better access. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and a small whimper escaped her lips as his mouth descended down her neck, kissing her throat, her collarbone, the swell of her breast, sucking lightly over her nipple. Her knees clamped around his hips, fire pooling low in her core. She wanted him everywhere, she wanted him right now. She wanted him always.

Her stomach swooped as she felt one of his hands fall down her side and palm the skin just below her navel, tracing a light circle over the soft, pale peach fuzz that grew there. 

His hand sank lower and lower, and the knot in the pit of her stomach alerted her with a lustful pang. 

And still his hand went lower. Lower.

He used his hips to nudge her legs a little further apart, and then his thumb dropped between her legs, sweeping over the little bundle of nerves there with light pressure.

Clarke gasped, lowering her forehead to his. Her eyes rolled back into her head at a pleasure she didn’t know another person could make her feel.

His thumb continued to circle there, flicking and pressing and grazing until she nearly saw stars. She felt her thighs begin to quiver on either side of his hips as he lowered his head, his open mouth returning to suck gently at the base of her neck.

Was this what it felt like, to be worshiped by a man?

“Bellamy, _please,_ ” she whimpered, her blood singing, her body aching for relief.

His hand stilled against her, and he pulled back, grinning. 

“That’s not all there is, you know,” he smiled, his eyes glinting with sparkles of lust and teasing.

“What?” Clarke breathed, not really able to think straight.

“Hold on,” he said, cupping his hands against the backs of her thighs and carrying her toward the bed. He pressed a sweet, lazy kiss against her lips before he lay her down against the mattress and loomed over her, his arms braced on each side. 

He smiled again as he laid one more kiss on her lips before kissing a trail down her body – in the hollow of her throat, between her breasts, against the soft skin of her stomach, in the soft rise of flesh below her hips.

“Bellamy, what–”

And then his mouth closed over the place where his thumb had been just moments before, hot and wet, his tongue sweeping slowly between her folds and flickering nimbly at the top.

Clarke bit down on her lip and clasped at the blanket to keep from crying out. This feeling – it was another world. Her legs were full-on shaking now, and she felt him clasp them from underneath, holding her lower half down as his mouth sucked and laved over her in an agonizingly unpredictable pattern. 

Something within her was rising to an incandescent shattering point. She reached down for Bellamy’s curls, grasping at them helplessly with her fingers. 

“Bellamy,” she whimpered, and he lifted his head, grinning up at her wolfishly. Bracing himself on his arms, he climbed up the length of her body until his face was looming over hers, his nose brushing the tip of her nose.

“Clarke, are you sure you want to do this?” He asked one more time, panting slightly above her, his eyes intent on her face.

She nodded vigorously. “I want you,” she said breathlessly, meeting his gaze through the shimmer of her lustful fever. 

“Have you done this before?” He asked quietly, trailing a finger across her hairline and down her neck with a featherlight touch.

Clarke shook her head, wondering if he was asking because he hoped she had, or hoped that she hadn’t. 

“That’s all right,” he replied neutrally, though his brow wrinkled a bit with concern. “I just don’t want to hurt you. I never want to hurt you,” he said softly, pressing a kiss to her temple.

“I’ll be fine,” she said in relief, realizing that that was all he was concerned about. “Bellamy, _please_ ,” she repeated, shifting her hips up to his, bucking against him and feeling the hard length of him beneath his pants. 

He smiled at her again and reached down to kick out of his remaining clothing. Clarke’s eyes followed him downward, and as he sprung free from his underwear, she couldn’t help but stare. She’d never seen a man undressed this far outside of a medical context before, but from her limited visual experience, he seemed. . .a bit larger than average. 

“Please tell me if you want to stop at any point, and I will,” he said, nuzzling against her cheek. She nodded in agreement, and her eyes rolled back in her head as his splayed hand trailed gently down her skin, from her throat, to her hip, to gently pushing out the inside of her knee before he reached down to position himself above her. 

Sensitive and swollen, Clarke gasped as the tip of him gently pushed against her clit, rubbing over it lightly. She wrapped her arms around his back, her nails scraping lightly at his skin, pushing him toward her. 

“I’ll try to go slow,” he said softly, his voice husky, and his eyes blazed as he looked down at her, slowly pushing himself inside.

Clarke forgot how to breathe for a moment. There was a sharp pinch, and then she felt herself adjusting to accommodate his size as he inched ever so slowly into her. 

He was inside her. Her Bellamy.

They were one. 

“God,” he breathed, dropping his head to her neck. “Are you all right? Do you want me to keep going?”

She reached down and pulled his face back up to hers. “Keep going,” she whispered, tugging his mouth to her and sucking gently on his bottom lip. 

Slowly, he pulled back, then pushed forward again with another thrust. Her inner walls constricted, still adjusting to him, and he let out a low, guttural groan.

Another thrust.

A few moments later, Clarke started to feel more pleasure than pain as he pushed himself in and out, reaching down to kiss her lips, her throat, her breasts as he went. She locked her legs around his waist, allowing him deeper inside her. 

He was on top of her, all over her, inside of her. 

He belonged to her. He was hers. 

And as he pressed a long, sweet kiss to the spot beneath her ear, she knew that she was his. 

“I love you,” she breathed, closing her eyes as tight pleasure began to rise low within her once more. 

He raised his head, his curls framing his face like a halo as he held her gaze, lowering his mouth to kiss her languidly. One of his arms reached down between them, and suddenly she felt his thumb brushing over her clit again. The surprise of it, combined with the thrust of him inside her, sent her tumbling into ecstasy in moments, shaking around him, her legs and arms clutched to him for dear life as she panted. When it was over, she felt her limbs dissolve like jelly, trembling against his back.

“Jesus, Clarke,” he groaned, his hips stilling as he paused above her. He tucked a piece of hair back from her face, dragging his knuckles softly over her cheek. “You’re stunning.”

“Bellamy, you can’t finish inside me,” she panted when she finally came down from the haze of euphoria. Post-orgasm clarity was sinking in, and she _couldn’t_ be with child. Couldn’t risk it at all. Not now. Maybe not even when the war ended. 

She didn’t want that yet.

“I know,” he muttered, his voice strained, gravelly. “I know. Don’t worry.”

Clarke shuddered, still tender, as she felt him slide in and out of her. 

“Oh, _god,_ ” he choked out, his voice low in his throat. “You’re. . .perfect. That’s perfect,” he said breathlessly. “God.”

She arched her hips up against him, pushing him deeper within her. She could feel his arms on either side of her begin to shake, and he braced his forearms up near her head, his face dropping so that he could press kisses against the tender part of her neck.

She sighed.

…

Bellamy sank back onto the bed next to her after he’d washed himself up, resting his arm possessively across the still-bare skin of her stomach. Clarke leaned up to press a kiss to his temple before burying her face in his shoulder, clinging against him even in the lingering heat of the August evening.

Bellamy lay silently for a moment before speaking, his voice drifting softly up toward the ceiling. “I never even imagined. . .this. Being lucky enough to have you.” 

“You’ve got it backwards,” she said quietly, and he pulled her even closer into him.

“I’ve loved you for so long, you know,” he spoke up, his soft, low voice weaving into the peaceful stillness around them.

Clarke’s heart somersaulted in her chest, and she could feel goosebumps raising on her arms at those words.

It still felt too good to be true.

Whether she’d acknowledged it within herself or not, she’d wanted to _hear_ those words for so long. To know she was loved like this, by someone good. She’d _craved_ it.

She lifted her arm to cover his hand with hers, locking their fingers over her stomach. 

“This can’t be real,” she sighed. “It’s too good to be real.”

“I know how you feel, Clarke,” he said gently. “But I promise you it _is_ real.”

He leaned down to press his lips to hers once more.

_**November, 1918** _

“If we can forge this passage here, between the rivers, and press on to Mons, we will have it, men. We can end this all. Right here.”

General Currie had called many of the junior and senior commanding officers into a meeting in his dugout. They had all crowded in, and despite the close quarters, Bellamy could see that he wasn’t the only one still shivering from cold.

The general’s words made hope bubble in Bellamy’s chest despite himself, despite how cold, tired, and hungry he was. After Amiens, the Allies had finally broken through the Germans’ formidable Hindenburg line, then broken through it a second time in the battle for Cambrai back in October. But the Germans, like cornered dogs, were angry, and still fiercely holding their ground. The Canadian corps’ march toward Belgium to liberate Mons, a city that had been held captive by the Germans since the very beginning of the war, had slowed and stretched deep into autumn now. The first days of November were upon them, and as they worked, building roads and repairing rails and marching on, yellow and brown leaves crunched under their boots and scattered around them in the chilly wind. 

“It won’t be easy,” Currie continued, his eyes moving grimly from face to face as he spoke. “But men, I have faith in you all. I have faith in _your_ men. The Canadian troops have put up a fight in these last few months the likes of which we have never seen, and for that, I am proud.”

Bellamy squinted. Were those tears gathering in the general’s eyes? It was hard to tell in the dim light.

“You’ve all received your orders. We march at dawn. It will be cold, and it will be muddy, but we have seen all of that before. Keep your heads held high, gentlemen, and I have no doubt that we will emerge victorious, just as we have in the weeks leading up to this. Now, go tell your men to get some rest, and try to do the same yourselves.”

The general dismissed them, and the officers slowly filed out, shivering with renewed vigor as they emerged back into the damp, nearly freezing air. 

Out in one of the alleys, he spotted Miller hunched over as he walked, two tins of rations clutched in his gloved hands.

“Miller,” he called, and the soldier’s head popped up from his turtle-like position. “Everyone bunked down for tonight? Ready to march in the morning?”

“As ready as we can be,” Miller affirmed, nodding. 

“Good,” Bellamy replied, grasping his shoulder affectionately as they passed one another. 

Bellamy stamped his feet before he ducked through the trench door, trying to knock some warmth back into them before he turned in for the night. 

Even though it was the night before yet another battle, he couldn’t help but smile slightly at the scene in front of him.

Clarke sat on their shared bed, already in her nightclothes, one of their tattered, worn gray blankets draped around her shoulders like the cloak of some wise and ancient queen. Her medic kit was open on the ground below her, and she was rolling fresh bandages, tucking them neatly in her bag as she went. 

“How was the meeting?” She asked him without looking up. 

Bellamy lifted his cap and placed it on the small table on the other side of the room. “I don’t want to get your hopes up, Clarke, but General Currie seemed optimistic. He thinks there’s a chance that if this is a success, it might be the last one. For good this time.” 

Clarke sighed and finally looked up at him. “Bellamy, everyone says that every time nowadays.” 

He unbuttoned his overcoat and replaced it with a thick navy wool-knit sweater his sister had sent him. He knew she hadn’t knitted it herself – he was certain she didn’t know how – but he was grateful for it all the same, whether Harper had made it or it had been bought from a shop. 

“Trust me, I know that as well as anyone, but Clarke – I really think it might be true this time. If we can cut off both the canal on the Grande Honnelle and the nearby railroad, the German high command will be finished. They won’t have a viable way forward. This could really be it. If it paves our way to Mons, this whole damned war might come to an end before the week is out.” 

Bellamy sank down next to her and swept her loose hair back from her shoulder, tracing aimless patterns across her back with his fingertips. Beside him, her eyes drifted shut, and she dropped her last roll of bandages into the bag at her feet.

“You better not be getting my hopes up, Bellamy,” she said tiredly. “Some days it feels like we’re going to be here forever. And the winter – it’s only going to get colder.”

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t have hope,” Bellamy said quietly, leaning in to kiss the side of her neck.

And truly, he wouldn’t. Clarke had been to hell and back in the last year. Nearly dying in a prison camp, losing her home, losing her last living family, and still coming back to sweat and cry and scream and bleed in the trenches alongside the rest of them anyways. He’d seen the tears spilling down her cheeks when she couldn’t save someone out in the field. He’d seen the way she limped after a few hours of walking, and how much worse that limp got when the weather changed. What had happened to her leg in the prison camp. . .it was probably going to stay with her forever.

And yet every morning she got up, put on her brave face, and did her rounds. She still had smiles for their men, still had kindness when it would have run out in others. 

He was so in love with her. 

His brave princess.

She turned her face to him, leaning her forehead against his, their breath mingling between them. 

Bellamy lifted his hands, cradled the sides of her face as he closed the distance and pressed his lips to hers.

She was so warm, so soft. Her mouth met his eagerly, but there was no hurry to it. They kissed languidly, slow and warm like a low-burning flame. 

She pulled back gently, nuzzling the tip of her nose against his. 

“Marry me,” he breathed.

He should have been surprised. He hadn’t planned on asking her then.

But he didn’t want to take it back.

And he wanted her to know that he wanted her, wanted to be with her when this was over, too. They’d spent most of their time knowing each other in dirty trenches, on bloodsoaked fields and in stark, dim cabins. 

They’d fallen in love here, but he wanted to love her everywhere. Be with her everywhere.

“What?” she stammered, not pulling away as her bright eyes searched his. “Bellamy, don’t feel like you have to-”

Bellamy sat back, grimacing. “No, Clarke. Don’t ever think that. This isn’t an obligation. Not even close. I want to marry you because I’m in love with you.”

She watched him warily, and the battle he saw in her eyes tugged at his heart.

Clarke was afraid. She wanted to believe him. She feared he was asking out of pity, out of duty, because the two of them had slept together – many times now.

“That isn’t what this is at all, Clarke. I promise you. Clarke, listen I–”

He paused, searching for words. Something that would make her believe.

He wasn’t sure if what he was about to say were the right words, but they were the truth that permeated him, that rested in every inch of his being. 

“Clarke, these past few years, nearly this whole war, I’ve been watching the world burn to the ground.” He took a deep breath, reaching for her hands and clasping them tightly within his. “And the truth is, this whole time, all I could really think about is you.” 

He pulled her hands to his lips, kissing the backs of them one at a time. “Always you. And when this is over, I don’t want to live to see another day where you’re not with me. I can’t stand the thought of it. If there’s a future for me without you in it, then I don’t want it.” 

There were tears running down her face now. “Don’t say it unless you really mean it, Bellamy,” she whispered.

“I do,” he said earnestly. “I do. I do.”

He let go of her hands to thumb the tears away from her cheeks. Bellamy fished for the chain around his neck and drew it out, unclasping the hook and sliding the ring from it. 

“You know this was my mother’s ring,” he said softly, holding it out. “I’ve been saving it for you.”

Clarke choked on her tears and threw herself forward, curling her arms around his neck. He felt her laugh through her tears, clinging tightly to him and pressing a kiss to his jaw. 

“Clarke,” he said, clasping the back of her neck and grinning. “You didn’t answer the question.” 

She pulled back hastily, scrubbing at the tears on her face. “Yes. _Yes,_ ” she nodded vigorously, still swiping at the tears under her eyes and laughing. “I can’t tell you how much I–” she hiccupped. “How much I’ve wanted this. How much I’ve dreamed of you.” 

Bellamy’s heart was holding steady in his throat now, choking away any words that he hoped to get out. When he reached for Clarke’s hand, he saw that it was shaking as he slid the diamond-shaped ruby and pearl ring onto her finger. Miraculously, it fit.

“It’s so beautiful,” she said, holding it right up to her face so she could study it. 

Suddenly, her smile fell.

Bellamy stilled. “What is it, Clarke?”

“Bellamy you know I can’t wear this.”

Panic rose in his chest. “What? Why?”

“We both know VAD nurses can’t be engaged or married,” she said quietly. “I can’t put this on until this war is over. Here, give me the chain. I can wear it around my neck, like you did.”

Bellamy’s heart rate slowly returned to normal. It was just over a formality, nothing more. 

He watched as she slid the ring onto the chain and hung it about her neck, the ring nestling coyly over her breastbone. 

Clarke smiled at him and reached for his hands again. “You seem cold, soldier,” she said, lifting an eyebrow in his direction. “How about I warm you back up?”

He smiled against her mouth as she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.

… 

Clarke rose from bandaging a superficial wound on a British soldier’s leg and clutched her rapidly depleting bag of medical supplies. 

“You’ll be all right?” She asked, offering a hand to help him up.

“Aye, it just stings a bit. Go back to your unit, missy, if you can find ‘em,” he told her, coughing in the cold, polluted air. 

“Working on it,” she muttered, watching him rise and limp off toward some of his comrades who were hurrying across the field. 

The battle had been going on for two days now. The Canadian corps had managed to pave a path for the heavy artillery to forge ahead, and from what Clarke could tell from the mutters and whispers of the men at night, the Allies’ odds were looking favorable. Even in the past few hours, they’d managed to push across the French border into Belgium, and the corps were currently working hard to capture at least part of the village of Baisieux, which lay on an important stretch of the river. 

Given that they were constantly on the march forward, the losses weren’t as heavy as they had been in previous battles, but there were certainly still losses. Clarke had been limping through the fields that flanked the roads since dawn, tending to fallen soldiers and sending for stretcher-carriers as needed. 

Unfortunately, in the last hour or two, she’d lost sight of her unit, thanks to the fact that the 4th Canadian was currently short on medics, and she’d been spread a bit thin helping out with other companies. 

The smoke hung heavy in the air, making it hard to see much more than 40 or 50 yards away at a time. Squinting, she stumbled forward, stopping here and there to check on soldiers laying in the trampled grass. 

Most of them were bodies – many of them German.

The cold air that filtered through Clarke’s lungs burned, it was so icy and damp. She couldn’t help but wheeze a bit as she stumbled forward, tired but wary. 

She screeched to a halt when she realized she’d reached the road. 

Up ahead, the sounds of small artillery fire still rang out as the Allies and the Germans battled over the outskirts of the village. 

She should go. She’d be needed up there.

But she should probably not continue forward on the road, lest she want to be caught directly in the crossfire. 

Clarke hobbled back down into the grassy field to her right, plodding forward toward the thickening smoke and growing noise. 

As she walked, she squinted up toward what little of the sky she could see through the smoke. 

The year was nearly at an end. The days had grown short. It would be getting dark soon. An hour, two at most. 

She grimaced at the sharp ache in her leg as she walked on over the uneven terrain.

A shout rang out somewhere up ahead. At first, Clarke thought little of it. It was no true battle if the air wasn’t filled with the shouts of men – fearful ones, agonized ones, calls for help, strategy orders. 

But then she heard it again. Why did it sound familiar?

 _"_ _Help,"_ the strangled voice cried. It was coming from somewhere up ahead. Closer to the fighting.

Clarke reached up to tug on the buckle of her helmet, just to be sure. 

_“Please,_ _”_ the voice cried. 

Clarke squinted. Through the smoke, she thought she could see a man lying on the road. It looked like his arms were flailing at his side, helplessly scrambling at the dirt. 

_Something must be wrong with his legs,_ Clarke thought. 

It didn’t bode well. There weren’t any stretcher-carriers in sight. She didn’t know where the nearest field hospital was, either. There was likely a station up near the village, but that was also where the fighting seemed to be, and it was at least a mile away, if not more. 

Clarke stepped back up onto the road, cautiously walking toward the man sprawled across it. 

She stopped in her tracks when she heard it.

Though she was already cold as it was, a shiver ran down her spine as she heard the faint sound of men marching, the distant clatter of weapons to her left. 

It was the German side. 

An auxiliary unit must be marching toward them. Toward the city, as reinforcements. 

Clarke squinted through the smoke and fluttering ash. 

A mere half a mile away, the faint line of Germans began to emerge from the haze. 

Her heart pounded wildly in her chest. She didn’t have much time.

Though her leg screamed in protest, she ran toward the soldier still lying prone in the middle of the road.

She recognized the face that was screwed up in pain.

 _“Alastor?_ ” She gasped.

Scrawny, barely-eighteen little Alastor, the boy who always had a joke to lighten the mood. The boy who’d shared his precious homemade toffee with her simply because she’d stitched his wound. 

She had no way to get him out. 

But she couldn’t leave him. 

“Boy, am I glad to see you, Miss Griffin,” he groaned. “The bastards shot me in the leg, they did. Hurts something fierce.”

“I know how you feel,” she said in a strained voice. “Alastor, listen. We don’t have much time. Do you think you could put any weight on your leg at all?”

He grimaced. “I don’t think so, miss. I already tried to get up once and I just couldn’t stand.”

Clarke’s chest whined with tight panic. It already hurt her badly enough to walk on her own. She glanced around, hoping for the sight of another unit, of stray medics nearby.

There was no one. No one but the German line, drawing closer and closer. 

_They won’t shoot at me_ , she tried to reason with herself. She was a nurse, clearly denoted by her uniform and white apron. And she was a woman. Unarmed. 

There was only one way for them to both get out of this. 

“Alastor. That German line is going to be upon us any minute, do you hear them?” He nodded fearfully. “There’s no one around us right now to help, so you’re going to have to lean on me, and we’re going to have to walk out of here. Do you think you can do that?”

Hesitantly, he nodded, his cheeks still flushing with pain and cold.

“Good,” Clarke muttered. “Because we don’t really have any other choice.” 

She slung her kit over her arm and reached down to clasp both of his hands. “I’m going to hoist you to your feet now, all right? Try to support yourself on only your right leg, that’s it.”

With some difficulty, he hobbled to his feet, nearly biting clean through his lip to try to keep from crying out.

“Good work, Alastor, good. Now sling your arm over me, all right? Just over my shoulder, like that.” 

He did as he was told, and she reached to clasp his other hand, using it to stabilize him before they started moving forward. 

Gunfire at their backs made both of them jump.

“They’re getting closer,” Clarke said anxiously. “Alastor, I’m sorry, but I think the closest hospital will be set up near the village. I think we have to go toward the fighting to get you any help.” 

He turned to look at her, his young eyes clouded with pain. “We must do what we must, Miss Griffin.”

With a grim nod, she wrapped her arm around his waist and stepped forward.

Alastor was a slender slip of a thing, but even so, he was still 140 pounds of extra weight that Clarke wasn’t used to carrying. It was going to slow her – them – down, and the pain in her right leg grew sharper under the added burden. 

She bit back the strangled yelp that rose in her throat and pushed them forward. 

After a few minutes of walking, the gunfire to their left had grown even louder, and Clarke could feel Alastor’s hand shaking in hers from the pain of his efforts. 

“I know it hurts,” she gasped. “I know. We’ll get you somewhere where someone can help, Alastor. I promise.”

“If I make it through this, my mum will send you all the toffee you want, Miss Griffin,” he said, trying to keep his voice light through the gritted pain and failing.

They were drawing closer to the fighting. Around them, scattered men ran forward, through the field and across the road to meet the oncoming Germans. Clarke and Alastor pushed on, keeping their heads down.

Everyone’s eyes were on the incoming clash before them. No one stopped to help.

Clarke wished more than anything right now that she would spot Bellamy, or Miller, or Gabriel, or even Riley or some of the other younger ones. Anyone that would see them, and see that Clarke wasn’t going to make it on her own. 

Her leg was aching to the point that she was actively biting back a scream of pain, and all of the muscles in her legs and arms were shaking with fatigue. Her breathing was so ragged that she could hardly fill her lungs, and Alastor wasn’t much better off.

Every once in a while, a bullet would whizz past them, or a small shell would explode somewhere nearby, and Clarke would flinch, wondering if the next one would be the end of them. 

They’d walked nearly a mile now, and Clarke could see that the fighting around the entrance of the village was too heavy, too deadly to try and breach in search of medical aid. 

“We’re going to have to turn here and look for medical personnel closer to the back lines,” she shouted to him over the smoky din, embarrassed at the hoarse tremble in her voice.

He only nodded in response, no longer able to speak.

They limped across the field, in the opposite direction as most everyone else, looking for medical trucks or temporary tents. 

Something sharp and white-hot bit at the outside of Clarke’s arm, and stars spotted her vision at the onslaught of pain. 

She had no free hands. She couldn’t reach over to inspect what had happened. Gasping, she looked down to see blood oozing from her dirty blue sleeve.

She’d been grazed by a bullet. 

She flexed her wrist and fingers. Though blinding pain shot through her at the movement, she could still move everything. It hadn’t hit her too deeply, then. She’d be all right.

She looked up to see Alastor glancing down at her bloodied sleeve in horror.

“It’s all right,” she wheezed. “It’s not deep.”

His expression didn’t relax. They pressed on, both of them breathing heavily and limping hard.

And then she spotted it, back near a treeline. A small white tent with a red cross on its canvas, and a pair of military trucks with the same cross on their flanks. 

Another mile away across open field.

So far away. Clarke wanted to cry. She might already _be_ crying. She wasn’t sure. 

She glanced around again for medics or stretcher transports.

No one in sight. All of the other soldiers were running by too fast for her to catch them.

She shouldn’t pull them away from their duty, anyway. She should continue to do hers.

Steeling herself, she grasped Alastor’s waist tighter and pulled them forward. 

Behind them, another shell met the earth, sending a shower of ash and dirt up over their heads. 

“We’ll be there soon,” she choked out.

The air was so thick with smoke. Between that, the pain, and the exertion, it was hard labor simply to breathe. The sound of her wheezing uncontrollably was so loud that Clarke almost didn’t recognize that she herself was making the noise.

Then suddenly, next to her, Alastor became dead weight, nearly toppling her over.

He’d fainted from the pain.

“Alastor, no! Wake up! We’re nearly there,” she gasped, shaking his hand hard in hers and fighting to keep herself and his unconscious form upright. _“Alastor!”_

Her pleadings were to no avail.

She was going to have to drag him the rest of the way.

Her chest heaving, she clumsily shifted him so that his armpits were looped over her arms, her hands clasped in a tight fist together over his chest. Slowly, her leg now on fire with agony, she began to tug him along, turning so that she was walking backward as she pulled them toward the medical tent.

Her arms were shaking so badly now that she nearly dropped him.

Her muscles were going to give out any second now.

She couldn’t breathe.

Every inch of her body screamed as if it were on fire.

Darkness spotted the edges of her vision with every step backward that she took.

Was this it? Was this the end, here? Were both of them going to die in this field, trying to get back to safety?

A guttural, desperate scream escaped her lips as another lightning bolt of pain shot up her right leg. The old injury wasn’t going to take another step, their lives be damned. 

And yet, she took another step.

Then another.

It was pure torment.

“Clarke?”

A tanned, familiar face swam into her vision, crouching in front of her.

It was Gabriel.

“Thank god,” she gasped, acutely aware of how uncontrollably her shoulders were shaking. “He’s b-been shot, Gabriel. He n-n-needs help.”

“You’ve been shot too, Clarke,” he said, his concerned voice muffled in her ringing ears. “God, you’re going to pass out, aren’t you?”

Clarke tightened her grasp around Alastor’s chest. At least, she thought she did. Why did her hands feel numb?

“Bellamy!” Gabriel screamed next to her, his eyes somewhere past her head. “Miller! Get over here!”

“What?” Clarke wheezed, confused. She was having trouble focusing her vision. 

“We were headed up toward the village,” Gabriel explained. “Since we were at the front of the 4th yesterday, they cut us some slack and let us bring up the rear this afternoon.”

The words were jumbled in Clarke’s ears. She wasn’t sure she understood. She simply nodded listlessly. 

The thud of running footsteps grew loud behind her. 

“Clarke!”

Bellamy’s voice cut through the fog around her. 

_Bellamy was here_.

“Oh my god,” came Miller’s voice as well. 

“Bellamy, grab her,” Gabriel said hurriedly. “She’s going to fall. Miller, help me take Alastor here.” 

All of a sudden, the agonizing dead weight of Alastor’s unconscious body was lifted from her arms, and she stumbled backward, her legs shaking too hard to continue supporting her weight. 

A pair of strong arms caught her, wrapping around her back. 

“What happened?” She heard Bellamy ask inches above her.

So it was him. It was Bellamy that was holding her. Clarke tried to open her eyes to look at him, and found that somehow, she couldn’t do it.

“I don’t know, I just found them,” came Gabriel’s voice from a few feet away. “They’ve both been shot. Alastor in the leg, from the looks of it. Clarke in the arm.”

“Too many bullets in you,” Bellamy’s scratchy, low voice said in her ear, tense and aching. She felt his hand wipe dirt from her cheek.

“They were headed for the tent,” Gabriel continued. “We’ve got to get them there. Miller, will you help me with Alastor?”

Clarke could still feel her limbs trembling. _When would they stop_? It felt like they would never stop.

She felt hands wrap beneath her knees, lifting her up. Cradling her body to his chest.

“I’ve got you,” she heard Bellamy whisper, and she finally let the darkness close all the way around her. 

… 

The cool gray daylight filtered through Clarke’s eyelids as she regained consciousness. 

She didn’t open her eyes, but as her general awareness trickled back in, she noticed a stiff soreness in her right arm.

The bullet graze.

 _Just another gunshot wound to add to the collection_ , she thought dryly. 

The air around her face was quite chilly, but from the neck down, she was warm and cozy. 

She opened her eyes. 

As her vision adjusted, she realized that she was in a hospital tent. _Again._

With a wince, she lifted herself up onto her elbows, looking around. 

Bellamy was slouched in a wooden chair a foot from the head of the bed, leaning his chin in his hand, his eyes watching her intently.

Her heart skipped a beat at the look in his eyes. 

_Even after all this time._

“How long have I been out?” She croaked.

He bent his head to glance at his watch. “About eighteen hours, I think.”

“God,” she groaned. “Wait, why are you here? Where’s the unit? What about the battle?”

“Shh,” he said soothingly. “It’s all right. The 4th Canadian was relieved by the 2nd Division last night. We’re done for now.” 

“And Alastor?” Clarke asked, looking around for him. 

“He’s on the other side of the tent. He’s doing fine. He’ll just be walking with a cane for a few weeks. They caught his leg in plenty of time.”

 _Unlike yours,_ the unspoken words hung heavy between them. 

“I’m glad,” Clarke said, reaching for the cup of water that had been placed on the side table next to her and gulping it down thirstily. “I’m glad he’s all right. I’m so sorry I couldn’t get him all the way to the tent.”

Bellamy ducked his head, shaking it. “Clarke, you’re the last person in the world that should apologize for anything right now. You have no idea what–” 

“No idea of what?” Clarke interrupted, annoyed that her voice was still raspy.

“Clarke,” Bellamy said in a low voice, his eyes holding hers with a tender fierceness that made her heart flip in her chest. “Alastor told us what you did. Other soldiers saw it. Gabriel, Miller, and I saw it. You – a lone nurse – carried a wounded soldier for miles across an open battlefield. It was above and beyond, Clarke.” He swallowed thickly. “You’re being recommended to the king for a Victoria Cross.” 

Clarke’s eyebrows shot skyward with disbelief. “What? No. There has to be some mistake. Women aren’t awarded medals, Bellamy. Don’t be absurd.” 

“You’ll be the first, if the king signs off on it,” he said, the tiniest of smiles sneaking onto his lips. “You deserve it, Clarke. Your family would be proud.”

Clarke’s throat closed up at his words. 

None of them would be there to see the day. 

“I can’t believe it,” she said around the lump in her throat. 

Bellamy reached for Clarke’s hand, rubbing circles into her palm with his thumb.

“I can,” he said gently. 

Clarke swallowed thickly, relishing in the softness of his touch for a moment. Not caring if anyone saw.

“So what’s next?” She asked, gesturing around. “What’s happened? Where are we all going from here?”

Bellamy scooted his chair closer. “Well, immediately, we’re going to find you some food to eat and a warm coat to wear. But, in the grander scope of things, which is what I imagine you meant, we captured the village. It’s no longer under German control. We’ve got the two rivers, too, and the railroad as well. Clarke. . .the rumors of peace have started. I think it’s coming.” 

“Bellamy, are you serious?” Clarke could feel her pulse picking up speed. She didn’t dare hope.

“I am,” he nodded, still smiling. “We’re continuing the march to Mons after today, but it’s mostly a formality. I think we’re going to try and liberate the few villages between here and there, but it shouldn’t be difficult. The German army has already started tucking their tails and running. I think – I think it’s ending. I really do. It’s been insinuated by General Currie that the 4th Division’s fighting days are all behind us now. He said as much this morning.”

“Oh, my god,” was all Clarke could find it in herself to say.

“I know,” Bellamy replied, squeezing her hand. 

Clarke’s head was spinning. Was this really about to be over? Were they about to be free from this hell, from this quagmire of blood and dirt and scorched earth?

For a split second, she panicked at what she would do at the end of this. She had no family to return to, and a city that, by all accounts, had yet to rebuild, given the persisting absence of most of its men.

But she still had the house, crumbling as it may be.

And she had the ring around her neck. The ring that she might soon be able to put on her finger.

And Bellamy. 

Most of all, there was Bellamy. 

Coming back to herself, she squeezed his hand in return. “Let’s go,” she said, peeling back the blankets and shivering in the fresh cold. “I’m ready for some food and that coat now.”

...

Four days after Clarke woke up in the field hospital tent, the Canadian corps marched into the city of Mons, liberating it from the captivity that it had been held in since August of 1914. 

Its citizens flooded the streets, whooping and shouting for joy at their newfound freedom, their rediscovered ability to breathe again, to pick up the pieces that occupation had shattered them into. 

The soldiers cheered and sang and whooped alongside them, happy to have liberated them, but even happier at the word of armistice that had spread through the troops, through the streets like wildfire since the morning. 

It was over.

The damned, bloody war was finally over. 

When the news reached them, Bellamy watched Clarke sit down in the middle of the town square and cry. 

At some point as he held her, the two of them shivering in the cold shadow of the city’s belfry, her sobs turned into bittersweet laughter, an exhausted joy that she could not contain. 

She pressed a kiss to his cheek, and he lifted the chain from her neck, pulling the ring from it and sliding it onto her finger this time instead. For good, now. 

The men in their unit cheered when they saw. Some exchanged money, shooting each other sly grins. Others hoisted Clarke onto their shoulders, shouting hurrah as she erupted into peals of laughter. 

“Remember us when you’re awarded that medal,” Miller joked, returning her down to her feet. 

“Who says the king will even agree to give it to me?” She rolled her eyes, but Bellamy couldn’t keep back his smile. 

Most days, he couldn’t believe that he’d found her. That they’d by some act of fate been assigned to each other. That they’d lived through that damn sinking ship. That they’d survived all these years of war together.

That she loved him back. 

“I don’t know about you all, but I can’t believe this day has come,” Riley piped up, dropping down to perch on the steps of the square. 

“ _You_ can’t believe it? Dammit Riley, you’ve only been here for a year! I swear it’s an act of god some of us are still around,” Miller jibed, clasping Bellamy’s shoulder beside him. 

“I don’t care how long anyone’s been here. It’s time to go home, boys,” Alastor chimed in, leaning on his cane as he limped up to join the group. “It’s time to say _au revoir_ to this place and get the hell out. I for one can’t wait to get back to those lovely subzero winter days in Alberta. At least there, no one will be shooting at me.” 

“Let’s go home,” Gabriel nodded, his voice low and even, ever calm in both crisis and in celebration.

“Home,” Clarke agreed by his side, and Bellamy felt her hand slip into his. 

* * *

**Epilogue**

* * *

_**January, 1919** _

The golden glow of the little chapel they were standing in washed Clarke in an angelic light as she stood across from Bellamy, beaming up at him with shining eyes. 

She was wearing a pale pink-and-white lace gown, the cut now a few years out of fashion.

It was the one her mother had given her for Clarke’s last Christmas at home.

The one belonging in her old flat that had miraculously survived untouched by the explosion.

At her shoulder hung the ribbon-and-medal pin that Clarke had received by mail a week ago, accompanied by a signed letter from the king.

The Victoria Cross. The first one to ever be awarded to a woman.

Clarke had opted out of attending the award ceremony at the palace in London. She’d said that she’d had enough transatlantic crossings for the decade, and that she wasn’t inclined to take another one any time soon.

After all that had happened, Bellamy didn’t blame her one bit. 

“And do you, Clarke Griffin, take Bellamy Blake to be thy wedded husband, to live together after god's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love him? Comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, and forsaking all others keep thee only unto him, as long as you both shall live?" 

“I do,” she said in a strong voice, her eyes on his like he was the only person in the room. Bellamy wondered if anyone else could hear the way his heart was pounding. It pulsed through his ears, his chest, his fingers. Bellamy flushed when he realized his hands were shaking as he slipped the golden band onto her finger, pushing it snugly up against his mother’s ruby-and-pearl ring.

“Then I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride,” the priest declared.

Bellamy held both of her hands in his as he leaned down, pressing his mouth to hers, relishing in the smile he felt on her lips.

A cheer lifted toward the ceiling from behind them. The two of them reluctantly stepped back from each other, but when they turned to face the room, they couldn’t help but keep their smiles.

Miller was clapping, grinning up at them proudly. 

Clarke’s friend from the hospital in London, Raven, was cheering, her arms lifted in celebration.

And there was his sister, too, beaming from ear to ear, her hand tucked into her husband’s elbow.

She was Octavia Blake-Levitt now. He seemed to be a good man, and he worshiped Octavia. Bellamy was happy for them. 

And in times like these, every little instance of happiness felt like a miracle.

At the hotel where their tiny little wedding reception was held, they raised their glasses of champagne to the ones who would have been there, if things had been different.

To Murphy, to Finn, to Jasper, to Monty. To Lincoln. To Jacob and Abigail Griffin. To Aurora Blake. 

Their champagne flutes clinked together in silence, tears of remembrance welling in more than one pair of eyes. 

“To the rest of our lives,” Bellamy said finally, raising his glass again. 

Next to him, Clarke leaned up to press her warm lips to his cheek.

Bellamy hoped that they would learn to live with their ghosts. That maybe they would finally find peace here together, amongst the salty waves and the ocean air and the love that bound them so irrevocably together.

“I love you,” he whispered in her ear.

_**June, 1919** _

Clarke pushed open the creaky front door and stepped carefully out onto the porch, relishing the way the balmy coastal air buffeted at her cotton shirtwaist and simple linen skirt. 

She walked barefoot across the newly-sanded front porch, wiggling her nose at the smell of fresh paint. 

“You’re up early,” she grinned, nudging Bellamy’s thigh with her foot.

“On the contrary, you’re up late,” he teased, reaching down to wrap a hand around her ankle. The calluses that scratched at her skin were not the same ones from before. The ones he had now were from holding hammers and saws, from wheelbarrow handles and paintbrushes. Not like the ones from before – the ones from railsplitting for supply lines and digging trenches and aiming rifles. 

“Mm,” Clarke murmured. “I had a hard time sleeping last night, is all.”

“The nightmares again?” he asked solemnly, dropping his paintbrush down onto the lip of the pail. 

Clarke nodded, faintly embarrassed. 

They’d been home for over six months now, but more than three years at the front wasn’t something that could so easily be shaken off. Her dreams had been plagued with screams, with gunfire, with rivers of blood and fields full of corpses. 

They weren’t as frequent as they had been in the winter, but Clarke sometimes wondered if they’d ever fully go away.

“You’re not the only one, Clarke,” he reassured her, his voice low, gentle. “It’s all of us. Nearly every single one, if I had to bet on it.”

Clarke knew that he’d had bad dreams too. He’d been at war even longer than she had – and climbed the ranks there through sieges and bloodshed. 

None of them were ever going to be able to escape carrying what had happened with them. It was too much to put aside, to shake away. 

But at least the two of them were here. Together.

Ever since the weather had turned in the spring, they’d been working together to restore the Seabright house. It now sported a fresh coat of butter-yellow paint, and soon, their porch would be a gleaming white, welcoming them to evenings in their wicker chairs, sipping hot tea and taking turns reading aloud from the books from Clarke’s father’s library. 

From the outside, it seemed a rather quiet kind of love.

But the two of them knew better. Inside them, it was louder than anything they’d ever heard, ever felt in their lives.

He was hers, and she was his.

If you’d asked her four years ago, this was more than she ever could have hoped for. 

Clarke bent to her knees, ignoring the old twinge of pain in her right leg, and crawled toward him on all fours. 

“What is it?” He smiled, that beautiful, crooked smile of his. Her heart skipped at the warmth, the unadulterated love shining in his dark eyes.

She planned to drown in them. 

“Nothing, except for that I love you,” she answered, tilting her mouth up and pressing it to his.

_\- Finis -_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it you guys. Thanks so much for coming on this journey with me. It's just been me, you all, and "Epiphany" by Taylor Swift on repeat, but it's been a great time hearing what everyone thinks. This is probably the most difficult story I've written, but I'm proud of it, and it means so much that you guys have enjoyed it, too. Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think one last time!
> 
> May we meet again xoxo


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